Il se passait au nuit du Père Porcher
by A.A. Pessimal
Summary: Hogswatch is a time when people return from afar to the happy bosom of their loved ones. Failing this, they might make do with their spouses instead. The Assassins' Guild at Hogswatch, and glimpses of a wider Ankh-Morpork. IN ENGLISH!
1. Mari et marie, homme et femme

_**Happy Hogswatch! When people working far away from home return to their loved ones, and sometimes even to their husbands… **_

The fencing ring at the Assassins' Guild School is quite possibly unique in the lists of sword-fighting arenas around the Multiverse. Unseen University also has its arena-cum-gymnasium, lined with rowan wood and octiron: but this is a space where wizards come to build up the mental muscle necessary for duels and _mano-a-mano_ combat of a different, more cerebral, kind.

The ring at the Assassins' Guild is large, spacious, and, for just over half its length, entirely conventional in that it is a wide open indoor space, floored in well-laid smooth wooden parquet, with an ample supply of crash-mats available and a certain amount of padding on the walls to cushion those students who fall or are driven awkwardly. It is a "ring" in name only: the arena is more of a regular rectangle, with discreet doors leading onto armouries and store cupboards, and a clear run to the surgery in the event of life's little accidents. The room is high-vaulted, and at second floor level, is surrounded by a gallery which acts as a viewing platform. Up to sixty students at a time may train here, and the space is ample for taking new and intermediate students through basic learning, training drills and dummy combats.

The other half of the ring is what makes this training arena unique to Assassins. Normally roped off from learners and younger students, the Advanced Combat Arena consists of a reproduction of a castle interior. Fights of steps, banisters and rails lead to balconies, sub-galleries, or to nowhere at all. These allow sword-fights to flow excitingly through a third dimension, with the added attraction of being able to leap, vault and slide out of the opponent's reach and turn the tables on them. The walls are mounted with trophy shields and weapons which an enterprising student may harvest if they have been disarmed by their opponent. Curtains, tapestries, bell ropes and chandeliers offer ample opportunities for swinging and climbing and gaining that intangible little bit of advantage. There are plentiful items of furniture which may be kicked at an opponent, pushed in front of them to upset a heedless charge, or picked up and used as impromptu weapons. Sometimes, a bottle of champagne is left in an ice-bucket, for that moment when both fighters feel in need of refreshment and a time-out. (Or else one wants to employ a ballistic cork to the eye as a weapon – points are awarded in either case.) **(1)**

For these are Assassins, where swordfighting and duelling are done with _style _and _panache. _

If a duel is on in the Advanced Arena between two students showing exceptional promise, or if two Assassins are resolving a disagreement with swords, or if Madame Deux-Épées is fighting a demonstration bout with an almost-as-gifted swordsperson just to keep her hand in, then the gallery is generally packed. If time allows, word is sent out to the Gamblers' Guild, as a courtesy, as this is the sort of thing they find professionally interesting too. Besides, having trusted impartial professionals fix the odds and supervise the betting makes life that much easier, when it comes to a little side-wager as between gentlemen.

Routine training and lower-school lessons attract fewer to the gallery, although Lord Downey has been known to quietly sit and observe a lesson in progress.

Today, he has taken time out from his busy day to come and watch a class. From the gallery, he watched Madame Deux-Épées meticulously checking equipment in advance of her first class, tugging at a strap here, a buckle there, occasionally throwing something aside with a muttered Quirmian expletive, but finally laying out what was needed for the lesson. Two porters arrived with a stretcher; she greeted them amiably and hoped they wouldn't be needed, and to make yourselves comfortable just over there out of the way, please, _mes amis_. The porters, knowing they'd drawn an easy drill, smiled affably back and did as they were told.

_They might have to carry a casualty to the surgery_, Downey thought, _and Emmanuelle's classes have more than the usual degree of hazard. Until then, they get to sit down in paid time and watch some of our more distinguished scions trip over their own swords. And the ones destined to be good at swordcraft are shining lights even at the age of thirteen. It's good to know who they are, for future reference. _

Emmanuelle-Marie Lapoignard les Deux-Épées was dressed slightly differently for this swords class. "Normal" usually meant soft flexible ballet pumps, loose baggy harem trousers, and a tight sleeveless top which – at first – male students found distracting. But only at first. Intelligent students soon discovered that they should be watching her sword, not her breasts. Any lapse in concentration soon turned out to be embarrassing and painful. Downey suspected this was an integral part of the unique training she delivered, which made her such a valuable asset to the Guild.

However, today she had soething slightly different in mind, and was dressed accordingly. She stood and waited, as a double file of students trotted in from their respective changing areas. It was a mixed class of second year pupils: sixteen boys and fourteen girls. All were wearing light upper body armour, simple leather front-and-backs, and mesh-fronted safety masks. They fanned out in a semi-circle in front of their teacher, and waited expectantly.

"Bonjour, _mes élèves_!" she greeted them, brightly.

"Bonjour, madame!" the class replied, with that variation of timing and intonation you only get from thirty schoolchildren, most of whom who aren't yet at home in Quirmian.

"I hope you are all fit and rested and your breakfast has had time to settle, as we will be working _hard_ for the next two hours!" she announced, raising her helmet high onto her head, pushing the conical leather-and-metal helm up by its nasal bar.

She let the implication sink in, and smiled.

"Just to warm you up, three circuits of ze arena! _Vite, allez_!" She ran with the pupils to set the pace, noting who was eager and who was slacking slightly. _Ah._ She dropped back.

"_Plus vite, s'il tu plait, monsieur de Montagnard_!" she demanded. "You and I are the only Quirmians here! Do you wish to shame our nation? _Avant! Vite, vite, vite! I am wearing chain mail and a helmet! Do you hear me breathing heavily?" _

She finished the warm-up with a few bending and stretching exercises, and called the class to attention.

"Observations, please, concerning the way I am dressed and equipped. You first, Miss Dimbleby!"

"You're wearing chain mail, miss. Not good quality chain mail, either. The sort of heavy, crude, stuff a Watchman or a guard might wear."

Emmanuelle nodded, encouragingly.

"And you're also wearing a helmet. A basic conical, a boiled leather bowl strengthened by a metal frame. With a nasal piece to protect your face. And you're carrying a shield. Circular, of wood and leather construction, with a metal boss."

"And your deduction from my mode of dress is?"

Miss Dimbleby continued, hesitantly.

"Please madame, that's the sort of basic equipment a minor Lord, who is short of money, but who has several hundred years worth of old rubbish in his armoury, might issue to a newly recruited guard or footsoldier, so that the soldier has minimal protection."

Emmanuelle smiled.

"A good answer. And another word for _minor lord _or _petty baron _might be?"

"A knight, madame?"

"A general?"

"A warlord?"

"No, non, non, non, non, _non!_" Emmanuelle cut them short. "What are you aspiring to be, _mes élèves? _What is the purpose of this expensive education for which your parents pay good money?"

She paused and said "You are Assassins. Think like Assassins. Consider my question like Assassins. I repeat, another word for a_ minor lord_ or _petty baron _might be?"

This time they got it right. At least five voices all called out the correct answer at once.

"A _client,_ madame!"

"_Exactement_. A client. A contract. And should you accept the contract to inhume a minor baron in Überwald, or a _condottieri _in Brindisi, or a _hidalgo _in Toleda – not to mention a _chevalier_ in Quirm - then you may be sure he will employ his soldiers and guardsmen to prevent you from accomplishing your duty and calling.

"Now as the Concordat tells us, it is considered most, most, impolite and maladroit of style to inhume the hired help – who are, after all, only doing the duty for which they are paid. But they still stand between you and your client. So how can the Assassin deal with the armed guardsmen and low-level bodyguards, without actually being so rude as to annul any of them?"

She smiled.

"Happily for you, _mes élèves, _there are ways and means of engaging guards and soldiers. Today, I have adopted the typical dress of a guardsman so as to demonstrate to you the approved means of fighting them."

She paused, and ordered

"All of you pick up a practice sword and a shield from the wall there! Vite! Allez!"

Marshalling the class into two rows and checking the practice shields were buckled tight to the students' arms, she returned to the front of the class.

"Maintenant. Regardez." she said, briskly, locking her shield-arm close to her chest and using ten pounds of wood and leather to protect the largest possible area. She made herself small behind it, leaving only her sword-arm free.

"A difficult target, no? What is there about me that is vulnerable? Where can you hope to hit and make the blow tell? Speak!"

"Your legs, madame?"

"Your face?"

"Your unshielded side?"

Emmanuelle nodded.

"Step forward… _monsieur le chevalier de Montagnard_!" she commanded. The pupil, the eldest son of a Quirmian knight and heir to family estates, stepped forward, sword in one hand, a round wicker-and-wood practice shield in the other.

Adopt the position!" she commanded, shaping him into the correct defensive attitude of a guardsman with shield. She faced the class.

"There are eight methods of attack that may be adopted against an opponent who is protected by the shield. Look upon the shield as the clock-face with eight numbers!"

She called "_Gardez_!" to de Montangard, and practically demonstrated the eight avenues of approach, calling them as she struck the boy's shield with her sword blade.

"Left shoulder! Left waist! Left hip! Left thigh! Right groin! Right stomach! Right shoulder! And the _neck_, where the shield does not cover! Now all of you pair off and practice! _Allez! Vite!"_

She moved among her class, correcting stances, swipes and thrusts.

"I wish this thing to be so automatic to you that the body learns while the mind forgets completely that it had to learn! Only then will you _ever _begin to become good with the sword!"

After changing over at least once, she took them through the defensive and offensive blows available to the guardsman with the shield.

"His defensive blows are to prevent your blade from striking him. His offensive blows are designed to hurt you while you are so occupied on doing him harm that you neglect your own defence. We have a word for this, mes élèves! Observe!"

She then called out de Montagnard again for single combat, taking it softly and allowing for his being a thirteen-year old boy. But she'd been watching him and he had been allowing his natural talent to ride too far ahead of a proper appreciation of self-defence. With no equals in his year, this had bred laziness and complacency. She considered taking him into the next class up – his talent outstripped that of his fellows and was giving him a false perspective of his ability. But for now…

She allowed him to cut and parry her into a defensive position and deliberately let the shield slip, exposing her neck and upper chest. De Montagnard was too good a swordsman not to miss the opportunity. But he should have wondered why one of the best swordwomen of her era, a woman never known to have been defeated in single combat, was making such an apparently elementary error…

As he lunged to thrust into the gap in her defences, several unwelcome things happened in quick succession. Her left hand and shield boss punched forward very quickly, lifting him off his feet and throwing him back by several awkward paces. As he struggled to regain his ground, Emmanuelle's shield locked behind his and then pulled out again, snapping his left arm wide and leaving him defenceless. Then, as he fell over backwards, unbalanced, her sword gently but insistently tapped underneath his hilt, flipping it out of his hand.

Propping himself on his left elbow, he felt the tip of her sword under his chin, lifting his face to hers.

"Observe! The fifth form of defence open to the guardsman! _The shield itself is an offensive weapon_, as the chevalier de Montagnard here has discovered to his cost! If you think of it as only a defensive weapon, you are not thinking, and you are depriving yourself of an advantage! Also, I showed him an opening. He did not ask why I was exposing my neck. He lunged for it. I said, _mes élèves_, we have a word for this! And the word is _overconfidence_!"

She turned to her pupil, and shook her head.

"_Quel dommage_. We have here the Chevalier de Montagnard, aged thirteen. Had he lived, he might have learnt from his mistakes and become a great Assassin. But alas, he died young because of his own regrettable overconfidence. I'm sure his mother cried for him."

She allowed a moment of uncertainty to pass over her young pupil's eyes, then grinned and lowered her sword.

"But happily, in this world he lived, and may reflect on his overconfidence. Get up and rejoin the class. Well done and thank you for your contribution!"

She drilled her pupils in the eight attacks and the four defences for the rest of the session, hoping that the brighter ones were beginning to realise she was teaching _technique,_ not rules. In a real sword-fight, there were no rules and anything to give you an advantage could and would be used, including concussing your opponent with a big heavy shield-boss. She was also aware of Downey up in the balcony, but knew she was working well with a good class. She wasn't going to put on anything better than normal just because _he_ was watching, anyway, best he sees us as we are.

Finally, satisfied, she had the class put their equipment away, and detailed a couple of the girl pupils to assist her in removing the chain-mail. She selected girl pupils only for this job because she was sensitive enough to know the effect she had on twelve and thirteen year old boys, and she sincerely had no wish to put them to embarrassment by asking them to lay hands on her body. She had no fear of being improperly touched – the boys were clever enough to know any deliberate liberties would be rewarded the _next _time they were in her swordfighting classes. Besides, they were, on the whole, painfully polite in these matters – they would be trying so conscientiously hard _not _to touch that they would fumble the job atrociously and, for instance, tangle the mailshirt in her hair, which was no laughing matter. The girls saw it as a matter-of-fact thing, and were capably businesslike about it, rolling the shirt up as she knelt between them, and drawing it up over her upraised arms without trapping her ponytail in the links.

"Merci bien!" she said, unlacing the quilted cotton undershirt she wore beneath mail to mitigate any heavy impacts.

"It's so _heavy_, madame!" Miss Louise Dimbleby observed, taking the full weight of the mail in her arms.

"A mere forty pounds." Emmanuelle shrugged. "You are, I think, sensible of the weight because you are holding it in your outstretched arms where it is not meant to be. Once on the body, the weight is evenly distributed and you hardly feel it. And this is crude quality mail, which as you so rightly said is issued to low-level siege cannon fodder such as newly recruited guardsmen. We Assassins have recourse to much better, lighter, stronger, mail, should we require it, and in a future lesson I will show you this, and offer you a chance to wear it."

"I believe the Dwarfs are making great technological steps forward with the production of light-weight mail." Lord Downey remarked, from behind them. "I've acquired samples, Madame, should you wish to see them."

Downey paused to speak to a couple of pupils and congratulate them on their application to training and their grasp of principle, and allowed Emmanuelle to dismiss the class.

"A very good lesson, as always, Madame Deux-Épées. You really are an asset to the Guild!"

"Thank you, Maitre!" she relied, coolly.

"I passed your request on to the Dark Council" he said, conversationally. "I am pleased to say it has been approved in all respects. Knowing your private circumstances and what with Hogswatch coming up – well, it seemed to be the least we can do, and of course you will also be on call over the vacation, supervising those pupils who will be staying on with us. Another pair of hands would be most welcome!"

Emmanuelle thanked him again, and made a mental note to tell her lover of the moment that for the next three weeks she would not be at home to him. Starting, she reflected, from later today…

* * *

The flying carpet stabilised at two thousand feet above the Circle Sea. It was a large "room-sized remnant" capable of easily lifting twenty people plus their luggage. In case of misunderstanding with the Ankh-Morpork City Watch, it had had large "_Corps Diplomatique_" plates sewn onto front, back, and undersurfaces. It was being steered by one of a team of two pilots, who consulted a lodestone on a string now and again, making subtle course corrections. No more than twelve passengers were seated or lying on the carpet, their luggage making no apparent dents or dips in the material, almost as if it was still sitting on a hard unyielding floor. It towed a large sack full of freight, with no apparent detriment to the aerodynamic qualities of the carpet. In the last few days before the hogswatch holiday, the crew expected this: they also knew they would be flying back home with a full passenger compliment, of Embassy and trading delegation staff who had secured leave for the holiday, together with Klatchian citizens electing to go home for Hogswatch. Similarly, the people flying out from Klatch were mainly Ankh-Morporkians, largely its Embassy staff who were surplus to need for the holiday season and who could pay the cost of a first class carpet flight.

The uniformed soldier sighed and made a philosophical Quirmian shrug. In some way known only to wizards, a shaped magical field of some sort surrounded the carpet, which compensated for the loss of air at heights and preserved something of the warmth of Al-Khali, from whence they had taken off some two hours ago. The passengers had been warned that this would gradually fade away as they approached a landing, and the purpose of this was to acclimatise them to Ankh-Morpork in winter as painlessly as possible. The resident wizard on board was managing this transition, and sat cross-legged in the centre making incantations and meditating.

The soldier looked curiously down at a…what was the word…camel of the sea… _ship! _underneath them, like a _bent-wire thing for connecting two pieces of paper…_ paper-clip cast on the water.

Then he looked at his travelling instructions again.

There was an iconograph of a gorgeously beautiful black-haired woman with full lips and startling eyes, dressed as far as he could tell in black, with a purple sort of sash on.

_Voici ta marie! _The caption proclaimed in large letters. _Elle s'appelle Emmanuelle-Marie. DEFENCE D'OUBLIER! _

The most-helpful paperwork also told him where she lived, adding helpful remarks such as "you have been married now for eleven years. Your wedding anniversary is June 23rd. You have, as yet, no children. Children are defined as small immature adults. _DEFENCE D'OUBLIER! _

The rest of the documents were his leave pass, travel warrants, a reminder to himself that he commanded an Army regiment based in Klatch and was due back at the depot fort in three weeks, written in Klatchian and Quirmian, with a passport made out in Morporkian requesting he be given prompt and courteous treatment by the Ankh-Morpork civil government.

He took his…. Hat, looks like a truncated cylinder, black brim at one end, large handkerchief sort of arrangement to go over the back of the neck, dead handy in the desert, wonder who thought of it, _képi, _that's what it's called! All this gold braid around it and on the top, whoever owns this must be a senior officer of some sort, what's this cap badge. An exploding grenade sort of thing, and this motto, _Obliviscor. _Thing, whassname, _Forgetfulness?_

He shrugged, puzzled, and put the hat on, for want of a better thing to do with it. It felt right. He'd heard there was a Regiment out there that was proverbially famous for forgetting. He tried to think if he'd ever come across them. After a moment or two he went back to studying the face of the woman. And remembered. A warm glow filled him. He looked forward to spending his leave with her. Some things you do not forget. Even in the Klatchian Foreign Legion.

The carpet flew on. The co-pilot put the word out, through the fourth crew-member, a pretty girl in silken harem pants and blue jacket, whose sole function appeared to be that of moving among the passengers handing out small cups of coffee, copies of the _Ankh-Morpork Times_. and the little illustrated scrolls which demonstrated what to do in case of an emergency(**2),** that the estimated time of arrival in Ankh-Morpork was now in two hours' time.

"Two hours to landing, _offendi_"

A fellow-passenger on the carpet grinned at him.

"I believe, _mon colonel_, we are both going to the same place when we land." the swarthy, scarred, Klatchian warrior said, smiling and revealing a mouthful of gold teeth. "We are both guests of the Guild of Assassins for Hogswatch. Myself as a Guild member, and you because marriage confers certain privileges. As one who was a pupil there for seven long years, I cannot help considering that you have the easier of the two arrangements. Floreat Viper house, and all that! Up School!"

The army officer smiled. He remembered the D'Reg warrior had been useful in a fight on the Hersheban border, where La Legion had had to conclude a swift alliance with the D'Reg so as to expel a far larger punitive attack by the Hershebans. He shuddered at some memories that were _extremely_ hard to forget, work on them though he did. But without 71-Hour Achmed's brokering a ceasefire and local alliance with the D'Reg to jointly fight the Hershebans, he strongly suspected he might be going to his widow in Ankh-Morpork in the form of a casket full of ashes. It had been a hard fight.

"I have some _arak_ here" Achmed suggested. "It is only going to get colder and we are going to the great city in winter. _Arak_ helps". He offered the bottle, and the colonel acccepted with thanks. Anything that made the next two hours bearable as the protective magic wore off and a continental winter began to intrude...

The carpet ascended to a comfortable three thousand feet above the circle sea. In the dwindling late afternoon light, the passengers could clearly see the beginnings of a coastline appearing on the far Hubwards horizon. As they approached it, the slightly distorted contours of the Ankh estuary began to shape themselves more clearly. A perma-haze of grey smoke and smog betrayed the presence of a city spreading out several miles to either side of the estuary. Snow had evidently happened: the landcape had taken on that stark monochromatic colouration that only happens after a heavy snowfall.

"The Great Wahoonie" said a Morporkian voice from behind the colonel, who was feeling the comforting warmth of the _arak_.

"We make our first landing at the Ankh-Morpork Royal Mail in fifty-five minutes" said the hostess, as she distributed more coffee. "For those who have never visited this city before, Klatchian Coffee and _orakh _can be made available to soften the culture shock, at an additional cost."

The Colonel, feeling the glow of the drink, settled down and awaited landfall. 71-Hour Ahmed grinned and quietly looked forward to meeting old acquaintances again. They had to be acquaintances: in his line of business, he rarely made anything as permanent as _friends._

* * *

"But wasn't that _cheating_, miss?" a student Assassin said, nevertheless drawing gratefully nearer to the bonfire that had been lit in the snowy fields.

Johanna Smith-Rhodes fixed him with a narrowed disapproving eye.

"Whet em I teaching you ebout wilderness survivel?" she demanded, taking the opportunity to draw closer to the fire herself. "In perticuler, concerning intelligent end efficient use of resources?"

Johanna had learnt survival skills in deserts and jungles back home in Howondaland. After nearly nine years in the City she was proficient in the skills of winter survival, but did not pride herself on knowing everything. The cold, to her, was challenge and extra privation, an enemy to be vanquished and a friend to be made. She gave the questioning Assassin two sticks, which he took in his right hand. He held them in a gloved hand, looking puzzled.

"You can go off end make a fire of your own if you disagree with me." she said, pleasantly. "Just rub the stickkies together end friction will ignite a sperk. Eventuelly. But listen to me. If I hev metches to light a fire, I will not bother with two sticks. As our party today includes a wizard who can do fire spells, then es far as I em concerned, Mr Stibbons is a resource available to us, end I hev used him intelligently end effectively!"

Ponder Stibbons stepped back and leant on his staff. He still coundn't believe he'd come out on this wilderness survival class, out in the wild hills which were uncomfortably too far away from the city, just because _she'd_ asked him to. But she had, and he'd followed her, and he was pretty sure that when he got to feel his feet again he'd be feeling some whopping blisters. Ridcully had encoursged him with booming cries of "Yes of COURSE, laddie! All the leave you need to establish good relations with our friends in the Assassins' Guild! Get out in the open air for a few days, do you good, what with that young woman of yours being most at home in the country!"

"As long as he's still got some spells left over for tonight, miss!" an anonymous girl Assassin called. Ponder coloured. That first night on the trail….

Johanna didn't turn round.

"I heard thet, miss Petley" she said, pleasantly. "Fortunately for you Hogswatchnight is near end I em minded to be lenient."

Ponder remembered, After a long march with forty student Assassins and three of their teachers – Johanna had called it _a "little trek to warm us up. Let us say, twenty miles_" they had set camp. All chores done, Ponder had taken his boots off and gratefully wrapped himself in blankets and a sleeping bag, wondering idly who was going to share the tent. Then Johanna had got in, sealed the tent behind her, shaken off her boots and got into his sleeping bag as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

"Did nobody tell you we buddy up et nights? We share body warmth?" she had asked him.

"Nnnnngh." Ponder had said. He normally inhabited a world where beautiful redheads did _not _get into bed with you at night to share their bodily warmth. It took some getting used to, at least for the first thirty seconds or so. She rearranged her body and snuggled.

"This is _nice._" she said. "Kiff!"

_Kiff._ He loved that word. In Vondalaans, it meant "satisfactory", or "good", or "this is the best of all possible outcomes." From her lips, and about him, it was like a love letter.

With their clothes on it could be nothing other than chaste, but the idea of their relationship having arrived at the sleeping-together stage was fusing parts of Ponder's cerebrum. And it had been four nights now… they were due back in the city for Hogswatch. Johanna and Alice had reckoned on a forced march that would get the students back to the Guild in time to recover for a day, then be fit to celebrate the holiday. All Ponder needed to do was stand by with his broomstick to cas-evac any more frostbite or exposure cases to the Lady Sybil, another reason why Johanna had wanted him on the exercise: after the first emergency, the students had realised that having a wizard along wasn't just a case of their Teacher bending the rules to get her boyfriend along on the outing, and he was actually receiving respect from them. And he had to admit that under her stern chivvying, he was feeling more physically fit than he had done in a long time. He looked forward to the holiday, where for at least part of the time he'd be a guest of the Assassins. Then again, Johanna would also be a guest of the wizards for the other half of the time... it'd be like introducing your smart, civilized, sophisticated, girlfriend, the one you painfully wanted to impress, to your more eccentric, bad-habited, and generally embarrassing, elderly relatives. He shuddered at the thought. But at least he wasn't the _only _Wizard who was evolving a relationship with a lady Assassin...

* * *

"Explain the idea to me again, if you please, General" Lord Vetinari said, steepling his fingers. Behind him, Commander Vimes maintained a carefully impassive face. General Kiosk licked his lips, uncertainly, for once, and explained the Vision of the Divine Legion of Om.

The Divine Legion had survived the reforms initiated by Cenobiarch Brutha several hundred years earlier. Once the military arm of the Omnian religion, a division of pitiless religious fanatics and career soldiers dedicated to introducing potential converts to the benefits of Omnianism, they wouldn't just knock on the door and invite you to carefully read the pamphlets. No, they'd once have kicked the door in, set fire to the house, and converted any survivors at the point of a spear. These days, the Divine Legion and Army of Salvation in the Blessed Name of Om had to do things differently. Gone were the spears and swords, at least, except with full-dress uniform and for Watch-sanctioned self-defence in the Shades and other dubious parts of town.

General Kiosk** (4)** patiently explained.

"I see. The Omnian Church does not celebrate the religious aspects of Hogswatchnight, but it beleives it can come to a pragmatic arrangement with the social and ethical purposes of the festival." said Vetinari.

"Such as, my Lord, concepts of peace, goodwill, understanding and harmony between nations, which are also fruits of a happy personal relationship between man and Om. We see nothing to object to there and we beileve we can act with other faiths in an ecumenical mutual understanding, which of course brings the name of Om ever closer to the seeker after truth and eternal verity."

"And you intend to do this by having your massed brass bands playing all the old-time hymns, as well as the more wholesome Hogswatch carols, while the Legion of Salvation persuades the hungry, homeless and unlucky to join it for a nourishing seasonal meal, a hot bath and an opportunity to claim serviceable second-hand clothing. As well as a range of thought-provoking pamphlets and sermons which provide nourishment for the very soul. Commendable in principle."

"Except that the beggars in this city will sell the new clothes to the shonky shop for the price of a bottle of Bearhuggers, first chance they get, and they're temperamentally opposed to sleeping indoors in your spikes!"

"_Hostels_, Sir Samuel. Not _spikes_" said the General, quickly.

"And your bloody bands damn near caused a riot in Dimwell last night. The whole population was running into the neighbouring districts to get away from them!"

Kiosk sighed. Every so often he envied former Legion commanders like General Fri'it, who under Vorbis had only had to worry about getting food and ammo to the front line and conquering whole nations at spear-point for the Quisition to examine and process. It had been so much easier in the old days...

"Will this take long, sir? I need to be at the Klatchian Embassy for six. I hear an old friend's arriving on the scheduled flight and I want to remind him about what we agreed the last time time he was here."

"Oh yes" said Vetinari. "The concealed owner."

* * *

TIMED OUT - more will follow. On the Salvation Legion, on Death's court-martial, on home life a la Quirmienne, on the AG Guild and its hogswatch guests. Coming soon!

* * *

**(1) **An Assassin more skilled in poisons than swords may have other ideas at this point. Bonus marks are awarded for stealthily doping the other dueller's drink.

**(2)** The little scroll was in thick parchment, four major languages, and, following the heading _In The Event Of Major Stress Event In The Fabric of the Carpet_, had pictograms of passengers kneeling down and making one last fatalistic prayer to Offler, the All-Compassionate and Most Loving**(3)**, in the hope of a blissful afterlife in His garden of heavenly delights. Any barbarian warriors on board are asked to refrain from picking a fight with other passengers in a last-ditch attempt to get to Valhalla.

(3) Fill In Name Of Deity Of Choice And Preferred Afterlife Here.

**(4) **The founder of the Salvation Army on Roundworld was of course General William Booth.


	2. Maurice, Chevalier

_**Happy Hogswatch! When people working far away from home return to their loved ones, and sometimes even to their husbands… **_

_Right, I'm back from my own somewhat fraught Hogswatch with family, in-laws, outlaws, and sometimes even friends… I may even incorporate a few choice bits into this tale. But we return to Ankh-Morpork, a day or two before Hogswatch Eve, as various story strands mesh loosely together… (AAP) Oh, and writing in Vimes or indeed any other character with tobacco will be painful, as I am now in my fifth day without cigarettes. But for art's sake.._

The flying carpet spiralled down over the city. Noises, images and above all, smells, rose up to the passengers, growing stronger and clearer as they drew nearer to the ground. Closing in wide spiralling circles. The Colonel and the warrior had the impression of running, shouting, frightened, people one minute, trying to get away from… brass band music? Then as the sound of _He Shall Trample The Ungodly With his Hooves of Flaming Fire _receded, the Colonel looked beyond the city and toward the Hub: in the late-evening twilight, the sky had a deep, sinister, iron-grey texture to it that reminded him of the times in the Hersheban desert when the sky had gone a uniform dark terracotta red, a wall of clay getting higher as it got closer. He'd first seen it as a raw _sous-lieutenant_ and had stopped to marvel at the sight. Meanwhile, his sergeant and _caporals _were running around behind him screaming something about a _haboob_ coming, for the men to pitch tents, tether the camels, place the water supply under armed guard, _allez _and _vite_, we have at most twenty minutes!

Then, twenty minutes later, the _haboob_ had hit, like a furnace-wall of swirling sand….

71-Hour Ahmed looked at the distant iron-grey wall.

"A haboob, I think" he remarked, conversationally. "Although here, it will not be one of sand. The Morporkians have a word for it…"

"A cold haboob?" the colonel suggested. "A snow haboob?"

"A _blizzard_, I think. I encountered my first when out in the hills training with the Guild. The Compte de Yoyo led what they were pleased to call _adventure training_ then."

Ahmed shivered, dramatically. "I read the signs. I know we had a little less than thirty minutes before the _haboob_ hit us. I understood the urgency of getting undercover and ensuring our pack animals were protected. As we put up tents to act as windbreaks, I stood in the snow and in my naivity thought, well, at least in this foul foreign land, a good _haboob_ will warm me."

"And you discovered it was a storm, assuredly, but not one of sand as you knew it at home."

Ahmed laughed, ruefully.

"In a way, it was the making of me. I was twelve years old and far from Klatch. This accursed land kept throwing unpleasant painful surprises at me, and a _haboob _made not of honest sunbaked sand but from freezing snow and ice, and, was but a courtesy detail. After this unpleasantness, nothing could reach me again in the same way, and I learnt to laugh at the absurdity the God was making of my life. And the Compte singled me out for praise for the way I'd endured the blizzard. _Passed with distinction, _he said. Ah, we are landing. Sit firm and tight!"

Below them, a man with a coloured paddle in each had was guiding the carpet down into the courtyard of a large warehouse-like building, where the snow had been cleared to a thin gruel of grey-black slurry and slush.

A voice called out _Secure the mail! Higgins, you horrible excuse for a second-class postman, get it out of the bleedin' slush! That's a breach of Regulations, boy! And that there mail was put aboard this carpet in Klatch from all over bleedin' Howondaland! They din't mean it to survive jungles and deserts and the Circle Sea for YOU to drop it in the flamin' slush, boy! _

The carpet pilot was busy running down the manifest with a senior postman and a Customs officer.

"Three sacks general mail from all points in Howondaland for onward delivery. The diplomatic bag for the Klatchian Embassy.." the pilot indicated the large towed canvas sack with a nod and a sweep of his arm. The Customs officer nodded and shook his head in the direction of his assistants. Diplomatic bags could not be interfered with and by definition were duty-exempt.

Meanwhile, the passengers for Ankh-Morpork were picking up their things and disembarking, with bows and salaams from the carpet stewardess.

"Four passengers to stay on till the Embassy, where we turn around and take a fresh crew on, flight departing for Al-Gebra and Al-Khali in two hours. Scheduled flight will call here to pick up Howondalandian outbound mail, and that's about it, _offendi_".

The Customs check on the Colonel, the warrior and two other Klatchians was perfunctory and fast, and very soon the carpet was roof-hopping on the last leg of its journey, Ankh-Morporkian landmarks such as the Opera House and the Patricians' Palace passing by to left and right. Again there was a suspicion of brass band music, terror and discord, in the air.

Then they were being guided into a landing by another controller with the ubiquitous coloured bats, spiralling into a gentle descent until the carpet was hovering a foot or so above the snowy ground.

Embassy servants hurried to detach the diplomatic bag and spirit it away. The crew of the carpet, the pilots, wizard and stewardess **(1),** went off for dinner at the Embassy and to their quarters afterwards. A couple of magical technicians came out to perform routine flightworthiness checks on the carpet in preparation for its return trip, and the flight wizard from the returning crew came out to supervise its fuelling with enough magic to get it back to Klatch.

Meanwhile, the Colonel and the Warrior went to check in, a fact which caused some consternation, as the current Embassy guard platoon consisted of Klatchian Foreign Legionaires under the command of a very new and raw _sous-lieutenant_. A cannier and more experienced officer might have checked ahead to be completely sure no senior officer was coming to Ankh-Morpork during his otherwise _cushti_ **(2)** posting. Colonel Deux-Épées was inclined to be generous – he was at the start of his first long leave for nearly a year, and it was Hogswatch - but even he could see standards had slipped among the Legionnaires. He sighed at the dropped crossbows as two private soldiers fumbled a salute. He said nothing but his eyes took in the unfastened buttons, untidy kerchiefs, perfunctorily polished brasses.

Finally he sighed and said to the inwardly quaking junior officer

"I was looking for reasons to avoid this, mon brave. But I perceive that for the honour of the Regiment I have to decree a full dress inspection of your command at, shall we say, eleven tomorrow morning? Should your men pass it, we say nothing further and I congratulate them. That is all."

He nodded dismissal at the very junior officer, and moved on. 71-Hour Ahmed rejoined him.

"No sign of the Prince?" the Colonel inquired. Ahmed shook his head.

"Alas, he is at the bedside of a loved one who is fatally ill and not expected to survive."

"I am truly _désolé. _Was the Ambassador especially close to the dying person?"

Ahmed laughed.

"More so than he is to many mere humans ! I am told one of his favourite hunting dogs was recently savaged by an un-known animal. He is upstairs mounting a vigil, anyway, with a doctor in attendance."

"So we may as well leave condolences and depart, hmmm?"

"I agree. Dinner awaits. It is Wednesday. By the grace of Offler, it is mixed grill. The Guild of Assassins _always_ serves mixed grill on a Wednesday. Let us take our places at table!"

The mixed couple made their way to the Embassy gates. As bad news travels at a speed not much slower than light, an impeccably turned out gate-guard gave the colonel a perfect salute, which he returned by lightly touching his right hand to the brim of his kepi.

However, an obstacle to further progress loomed up out of the evening at them. It stopped just outside the Klatchian embassy gates, and raised a hand to Ahmed to halt his progress. With its other hand, it smoked a cigar.

"Sir Samuel. Offendi!" Ahmed said, bowing low in a _salaam_.

Sam Vimes took a deep draw on his cigar.

"A little bird told me you were coming back, Ahmed. Remember our little agreement?"

Vimes nodded towards the sword slung over Ahmed's back. The oversized sword which had the effect of dwarfing its carrier and making him look like a concealed wearer.

"Hand it over, Ahmed. I won't ask you to do it here, we can walk to the Yard together and you can surrender it formally on my turf. I'll see you get a receipt."

Ahmed salaamed again and smiled at Vimes.

"Unhappily, Sir Samuel, the sword no longer belongs to me."

Still on the embassy side of the gate, Ahmed unslung the sword plus scabbard. He turned to the colonel.

"Recently, on the Hersheban border, I had the privilege of fighting on the same side as my comrade here. May I introduce you to _Maurice, Chevalier les Deux-Épées, Colonel aux 3ième Tirailleurs de la Legion Étrangère de Klatch_?"

He bowed to the Colonel, who in turn clicked his heels and saluted Vimes. Vimes nodded, then saluted back: there was no point in being gratuitously rude, and besides, if this was the poor bastard, he needed friends. No need to add to his woes.

Ahmed continued.

"I would oblige you if I could, but _malheureusement,_ the Colonel and I are now sworn blood brothers. He saved my life, I saved his. And as I own him a life, I must surrender to him the thing most dear to me, which is this which was formerly my sword. It belongs to Maurice now."

Vimes gritted his teeth as the Colonel, quick on the uptake, accepted the gift of a fine D'Reg fighting sword. He tucked it through the sash of his uniform jacket, and saluted Vimes again.

Vimes took a deep annoyed breath, knowing he'd been outmanoeuvred.

"OK, fine. But if I see it on _you_, Ahmed, I'm confiscating it, understood? And have a good time in our city, Colonel. Your wife works at the Assassins' Guild, doesn't she?"

"Yes. I'm looking forward to seeing her again."

"Enjoy your stay."

Vimes watched as the ill-assorted pair disappeared into the early-evening mist. Maurice, _Chevalier les Deux-Épées, Colonel aux 3ième Tirailleurs de la Legion Étrangère de Klatch_, cut a fine figure in his dress uniform, but even so, Nobby Nobbs penetratingly said "So that's the _husband_, sir? Poor bastard!"

"They're Quirmian, Nobby." Vimes reminded his corporal. "They probably agreed to something like this. Quirmian marriage, remember?"

"And she's an Assassin, sir." Nobby reminded him. "The one they called The Black Widow, before the Guild pulled her in? I'm wondering what odds they'll take on that poor bugger making it to retirement."

"For all we know they probably do love each other, Nobby. They're Quirmian, though, so they way they express it might be a lot different to us. Now come on. I'm due home in twenty minutes for quality time with Young Sam."

Nobbs grinned. "He's too old for the Book now, sir? What do you do these days?"

"I'll show you. But time flies, doesn't it?"

* * *

**(1) **Had anyone ever asked her, Fatima bint-Sofiya would have preferred the cosmopolitan and Morporkian designation of "_carpet stewardess_" to the actual Klatchian term of _**Nautch-bint'qualiim, **_roughly meaning _female who provides favours while upon carpet._ She'd wanted to be a carpet-stewardess all her life, and loved her job and the opportunities it gave her for overseas travel. However, she felt the job title could use a _little _more work, as it implied certain services were available which she, Fatima, was not inclined to offer on this or any other carpet.

**(2) **One of those Arabic words the British Army brought home from long Middle Eastern service: _cushti_, or _cushy_, means "soft, "easy", comfortable.


	3. La niege

_**Back to the meat of the story...**_

In the permanent gloom of the late afternoon, with a good six inches of snow underfoot and a leaden sky above, the directing staff of the wilderness survival exercise grouped together to confer. They called a halt to the march, and gathered the student Assassins together, bidding them find shelter at the trackside and if possible brew up a hot drink of some kind.

"Don't help them, Professor Stibbons!" Alice Band said, flatly. "They should all still be carrying some hex tablets and whatever dry kindling they were able to retain from that last major stop. They were told to gather some in, after all."

"End the edventege of this country is thet snow is frozen water." Johanna Smith-Rhodes added. "Ell the pupils need cerry is the dry tea or coffee or even powdered soup. The water is ell eround them end will be made safe to drink es it boils!"

"I'm looking forward to the summer school next year!" the teaching assistant, Jocasta Wiggs, announced. She had graduated as an Assassin the year before, and had accepted a teaching assistant's position for a year or two while working out what to do next. She was at heart a cheerful girl, who accepted that her lot in life was, at least for now, to be the dogsbody at the bottom of the educational heap, doing all the donkey work involved with learning the teaching profession from the bottom up, whilst not being paid properly for it. The pupils gave her the respect due to one of their own who had successfully passed the Final Run, as even in the worst winter weather she had been cheerful and encouraging, and Johanna and Alice valued her as part of the team.

"Next summer in Kletch end Howondaland!" Johanna agreed. "Desert survival poses its own difficulties. Not the least being thet we cennot do it this near to the School, we hev to trevel. But so meny of them wish to do it. I em pleased at the response. There are more pupils than places right now!"

"And speaking of the School, the immediate task is getting back there." Alice commented. Their party was currently located twenty-five miles or so Hubwise of the city: where the last of the Sto Plains gave way to the foothills of the Carrock range, the first swellings of what would later become the wild and majestic Ramtop mountains. This was the nearest available wilderness to the city, and a location where student Assassins had for many years been brought to learn how to cope with living and working in the barren open country, a clear five miles away from even the nearest cabbage field. From here back onto the Plain and then to the city was mainly downhill, but it was still a good twenty-five miles away. Assuming three and a half to four miles an hour, which was fair going for young physically fit people, that was still between six and eight hours' march. And that if it kept clear.

"I don't like the look of that sky over there." Alice said, pointing towards the same block of uniform darkness that Ahmed and Colonel Maurice had watched from the incoming carpet. "That says "blizzard" to me. And in the next four or five hours."

"We need a defensible place. Sheltered. End time to dig in." Johanna added.

"I agree" said Alice. "Professor Stibbons, take one of us up for a recce, if you please. Watch my stuff, Johanna? Thank you."

Alice quickly shed the excess weight she wouldn't be needing, as Ponder hauled in the broomstick that was floating at just above head height, in neutral gear, with his large pack slung on the pole via its arm straps. In neutral, a broom would just hover passively at the point where it had mass but no weight, with minimal expenditure of magic. Towed along like a child's balloon, Ponder had discovered it could carry his pack better than he could, and had taken the smiling comments about "you're cheating!" in good heart.

And then Ponder had realised that the broomstick could also take the packs of two or three student assassins at a time. As injuries mounted up, he'd quietly conferred with Alice, Jocasta and Johanna: Alice, who was in overall charge, had been heard to say to a series of strugglers "You. I'm allowing you to travel light for the next half hour. Pass your large pack to Professor Stibbons, who will look after it for you. Then when you've had a break, I expect you to keep up."

Alice shed the coil of rope, her pick and shovel, and her larger pack, then leapt up pillion behind Ponder.

"Tally-ho, Mr wizard!" she called, as the broom leapt up. "Take me up to five hundred for now . I want a place we can hole up in comfortably for the duration of a blizzard. Eyes peeled, look down!"

Trying not to look at the distant dark wall that marked the coming blizzard, Ponder took his passenger up to the requested height, quietly thankful that alone among humanity, Assassins instinctively knew the right way to lean when riding pillion, and scouted their path back to the city for the next ten miles or so. Even at this low height, Ankh- Morpork was a grey smoky blur on the Rimwards horizon. While light conditions precluded making out any of the city landmarks, the pall of grey-black smoke rising from the city and then flattening out as it met low-lying cold air was, in itself, unmistakeable.

Alice tapped him on the shoulder.

"Bring her down here, Professor."

Ponder spiralled down towards a wide cleft in a rockface, at the base of which snow had piled in a deep drift. The two rock faces met at an angle, like the inclined sides of an inverted letter "V". Behind him, Ponder heard Alice say "perfect!", and then she was urging him to get back to the main party, some two miles away. As they flew back he heard her doing mental arithmetic:

_Half an hour to walk there. Forty people digging in for three hours. Then the blizzard hits, for however long. Ten hours? Twelve? Well, they'll all have Passed after enduring that!_

Ponder sighed. Well, if they weren't going anywhere for a few hours, just sitting in tents keeping out of a blizzard, at least he got to do it with Johanna. Which made a lot of things bearable.

* * *

Back at the Assassins' Guild, formal lessons approached their end as the term drew to its close and a relaxed holiday atmosphere started to permeate the buildings. Individual students came to the ends of their term, and petition slips for early release landed on the desks of their houseteachers. These were matched to school records and previous agreements with families, and if everything was in order, the pupil was permitted to leave the School to return home. In most cases, the parents attended personally to collect the pupil; sometimes, a trusted family servant was sent; and very rarely, the pupil was allowed to make his or her own way home.**(1)**

In the last week of that Hogswatch term, therefore, while three teachers and thirty-six students were off on a wilderness survival week in the Carrock hills, the population of the Guild school nearly halved. The vast majority of the day pupils would be with their families over the holidays, anyway. Boarders from the main continent of the Disc, or at least the parts that could feasibly be reached and returned from in a two-week holiday, were as likely to spend the holiday at home as not.

It was largely boarders from further away who would be confined to the School over the holiday, with the Guild stepping into the breach as surrogate parent and providing a sternly loving home. It took five weeks, even on the fastest ship, to get the the furthermost part of Howondaland. There was talk of the Klatchians expanding their commercial flying carpet service further Rimwards to take in KwaZululand and the URH, and the smart money was on that happening in the New Year. After all, based on their operational hub at Al-Khali, commercial carpets had established the all-important Al-Khali-Ankh-Morpork route and added satellite flights at each end to feeder cities. The logical next step was to add trans-Howondaland flights to Zlabingo, Pratoria and Uluwayo. The dream of Rimwards Howondalandians for a shorter journey home would be met, provided they were hardy enough for a forty-eight hour marathon flight over two continents.

But for now, Howondalandian pupils of all races and skin colours were forced into close proximity because there wasn't an alternative. Leavened with all the other nationalities of the disc who had students at the Assassins' School, it made for a culturally interesting time. As Fourecksian pupil Germaine Grinder (Five Black Widow) put it,

"It's like that flaming window display in Crumleys, isn't it? I mean, strewth, he fetches it out every flamin' year, the one where all the little boys and girls of all nations are in their national costumes and dancing and singing about how nice it would be if everyone was nice to each other. Apart from the fact I've never ever worn a bush-hat with corks dangling from the brim, that model's almost real. I mean, it's _almost_ like that here at the Guild over Hogswatch. All the little boys and girls from all over the Disc trying to rub along, trying to be best of ockers, and not kill each other, you know, which is _hard, _as killing people is what we're being trained to _do_ for a living. Then you get a prize joker like Pik Botha making some remark about Zulus, and that sets off Johnny M'Bekwe who says "Boor bastard, another word from you and I take your most private parts as adornments for my assegai!", and I'm thinking Pik's just an ignorant Kerrigian redneck even if Johnny's just a a different sort of Abbo, no offence, and then Count Ignatieff from Zlobenia, he's a prize horse's arse, pushes an empty glass at me and he says "fill it, woman!" which you _do not do_ to a Fourecksian feminist freethinker like me! So I'm telling the ignorant arrogant Zlobenian ponce that I'm off to the dunny and I'll fill his glass while I'm there, then believe me I'll make him drink the flamin' lot, and by then Miss Smith-Rhodes and Canon Clement are sorting out the fight that's just started between Botha and M'Bekwe, so I hop out the window with Sue Donaldson, she might be a sheepshagger from the Foggy Islands but she's basically alright, and we meet these bonzer guys we know from the Thieves' Guild who've stolen some wine, and we go drinking with them, even if it gets us a detention and a yelling –at from Bandy Alice later on."

Germaine had added:

"Then they make Mrs Mericet into the Official Hogswatch Fairy, which is about right. She's got a lot in common with an elf! She'll skin you alive and enjoy doing it and then marinade what's left in salt and vinegar!"

* * *

**(1) Student Assassins are very rarely discharged for the holidays on their own unsupported word of honour these days. The practice was curtailed in the days of Raffles Major (Wigblock Prior House) who, having secured his release from the Guild with a forged note purporting to be from his parents and knowing nobody would be looking for him for a few days, made good use of the time and his exemplary grades in Stealth, Lockpicking, Breaking and Entering, by burgling several banks and wealthy private houses in Ankh-Morpork. **

**This caused an embarrassing demarcation issue between the Assassins and the Thieves, and was only amicably resolved by Raffles being transferred to the Thieves Guild School, where he became a shining light of the School of Gentlemanly Robbery and Thuggery (an area of Thievery where Mr Boggis has conceded that the Assassins may have a legitimate interest.) and graduated with starred honours. Mr Raffles now teaches part-time at the School of Deportment for Gentleman Thieves, whilst avoiding occassional attempts by disgruntled clients to place him on the Assassins' contract list. Having been taught by both Guilds, even if he is only a formal graduate of one, he is rather like Sam Vimes, in that he knows how Assassins think and can easily evade them. **


	4. Il fait froid aujourd'hui

_**Happy Hogswatch! When people working far away from home return to their loved ones, and if they can't manage that, they make do with their husbands… **_

Joan Sanderson-Reeves had a reputation for being efficient. She had efficiently inhumed eighteen men as a private practitioner before the Guild of Assassins had caught her and suggested she bring her skills in-house as a licenced and trained Assassin.

A teacher by trade and inclination, she had brought her professional skills to the Guild school, where she was now Head of Day Pupils, Bursary and Scholarship. As virtually all her pupils had gone home for the Hogswatch holiday, Joan could have been forgiven for going away for the holiday herself, as she had no need to stay on at the Guild and temporarily had no responsibilities to discharge. However, with Alice Band being on detached duty leading a wilderness survival class, Joan had been living in, covering Alice's responsibility to her boarders in Tump House. She didn't mind this, as she always liked being around the school at this time when it seemed to acquire a different dimension of life and energy. And she felt a sort of kinship towards the kids who were staying on, for whom going home would be impracticable or who had no families to go home to.

Another of her post-graduation achievements had been her election to the Dark Council of the Guild, its guiding body and steering committee. Here, she had argued for and got funding from the Guild to celebrate Hogswatch – this had been her price for being acclaimed to be the right woman for the job of organising the Guild's Hogswatch festivities.

Looking at her budget, she had called together a staff meeting of House teachers and told them they each had fifteen dollars to buy decorations for their House. "Meagre, I know, but you will all have some decorations left over from last year and the year before!" Raising a hand for silence, she had added "And you also, of course, have your initiative, and your artistic ability, and lots of creative talent is available to you. Now moving on, I've also been allocated cash to buy one gift for each pupil who will be resident with us on Hogwatch Day. You all know your own pupils best. So I'm delegating this money to each of you to spend as you see fit. Please get the wrapped and labelled presents back to me no later than Hogswatch Eve morning, please. Just between you and me, I'm hoping to be able to persuade Mr Nivor to wear the Hogfather costume - yes, I know, but the alternative is Mr Mericet, and I rather think he's not quite _right _for the role. Even _with_ a cushion up the front!"

The laughter died down.

"And now." Joan said, sternly. "The draw for _Secret Hogfather_…"**(1)**

* * *

Up in the hills, the wilderness survival party were digging and cutting into the deep snowdrift. Snow from the excavation was being used to deepen and thicken the embankments to front and rear. Ice saws had come into play to cut large ice bricks from the thicker, more compacted, snow beneath. These were being used to reinforce and roof an ice shelter running from wall to wall of the rocky inlet Ponder and Alice had discovered. As ground was cleared in the snowdrift behind the ice trench, groundsheets and cover sections were being erected as tents where they would be out of the direct blast of the storm. With Alice directing, and forty spades and ice-saws working, the ground and the snow were being shifted at a prodigious rate. Ponder looked up from shovelling snow and ice onto the front surface of the shelter , with a nagging thought that as a wizard confronted with a blizzard in a high place… well, _relatively_ high, he must be thirty feet above sea level here ….. he should be waving his staff in rage and cursing foul Caradhras, or something **(2).** He looked at the high cliff face behind him and conscientiously put all thought of cursing Foorgol, God of Snow and Avalanches, out of his head. _Caradhras_? Where had that come from… A flock of black birds whirred by overhead, no doubt also aware of the need to outfly a storm, and causing the humans below to shrug in a "so what?" manner.

Johanna and Alice conferred with Jocasta again. The darkness in the sky was nearer and a perceptible cold wind had blown up. The three of them conducted another tour of the shelters, and Alice said "Get inside, everyone. Use your nearest entrance. Seal it up when everyone's in. Later on we can spread out to the tents. If they stay up, once they're covered in snow they'll be fairly snug and dry. But we can't start off for the Guild until the storm blows itself out. I'm afraid. Blankets and sleeping bags out once you're inside, if anyone needs a comfort stop he or she had better do it _now_ – downwind, if you please, as it can still be smelt - then buddy up for warmth and we'll think about food and a hot drink. Ten minutes for comfort stops begins now!"

Ponder got his staff and broomstick inside, laying them carefully on the shelter floor. Here, Johanna had insisted they cut recessed ledges for sitting and sleeping in. The retrieved ice had gone to make the roof, through which light leaked in an opaque, inside-of-the-igloo way, and the effect was one of surprising but not lavish space. In what had become a practiced drill, he and Johanna zipped their sleeping bags together to create a double-sized cover. Other pairs of students were doing so up and down the trench.

"We'll heve to get in with boots on, Ponder" she sighed, regretfully.

"Just as well" he said, making light of it. "My feet after a week…"

She giggled. "End mine! End everybody's!"

Ponder felt the usual delicious "nnngh!" as she snuggled for comfort. "Et least one blanket, please , Ponder. Thenk you."

"How does this work, Johanna?" he asked.

"Well… I keep you warm, you keep me warm. I believe it to be deeply imprinted in the mind of a man end a woman, thet they both derive pleasure from being physically close to each other…"

Ponder reddened. "No, all this forty people in a long deep trench carved out of snow and ice but roofed over like an igloo. Surely our body heat should melt it all?"

"You would think so. But epperently the rate et which it melts is controlled by the air temperature outside so that it ell remains in belence. Which reminds me. Students, when the storm hits you will experience fluctuations in air pressure, and any lights we hev lit mey go out. This is neturel and not to be feared. Breathe deeply end steadily end try not to penic. Look to your buddy for comfort. End very funny, miss Curbishley, you will remain essured I will find comfort in _mine_! We will ell be home for Hogswatch, sooner than we think. Thenk you!"

Outside, a noise was building. There was no such thing as a large steam engine on the disc, so no real referent for it in the minds of any of the Assassins. Although Johanna Smith-Rhodes had once seen and heard three full impis of Zulus advance to the charge. The noise made by two thousand barefoot warriors charging in perfect step over the veldt is surprisingly like the noise a Hublandish blizzard makes just as it hits you. **(3) **As the storm hit, Johanna had a crystal-clear set of memories of Home…

* * *

**(1) "**_Secret Santa_" is a sadistic refinement perpetrated in thousands of British workplaces, where the names of workers are randomly selected and paired together. Usually overseen by one of he more officious junior managers, who will tell you that in the interests of better office morale, the victim is told that he or she must go forth and buy a Christmas gift for a randomly selected coworker. The only concession is that some randomly selected co-serf has been ordered to do the same for you. The hideous results of the exercise are not normally exchanged until the last possible minute when the officious junior manager who initiated the experience is nowhere to be seen.

**(2)** Gandalf could curse with impunity a spirit who was already throwing the worst he could at the Fellowship of the Ring. Ponder is working in accordance with an early lesson to Discworld wizards concerning Gods: you don't have to _believe_ in 'em, but it's vitally important you don't _annoy_ them.

**(3)** Watch the film **"Zulu".** Then experience a blizzard out in wide-open ground in rural Norfolk. Same noise. Funny but true.


	5. Defence D'Oublier! 1

_**Happy Hogswatch! A time for the family. Especially if the family concerned is the Wests, the Addamses, the Mansons…**_

The Embassy's second secretary placed a consoling hand on the back of the Ambassador, Prince Allad'in. The doctor, who despite many other commitments had attended the Embassy to see to the casualty, looked up from his kneeling position at the bedside and shook his head. The Ambassador bowed his shoulders, helplessly.

The other people in the room, the sort who will gravitate to the drama of a sickbed, those who in an Embassy family far from home will consider they have an official right to be there, or those who are just there for the gossip, tried to have the good grace to be silent.

"So there is no hope, esteemed Doctor?" the Ambassador asked, more in hope than expectation.

"None at all, Sharif. None at all." Dr Mossy Lawn said, as gently as he could manage. He knew he should feel irritated, at the very least, at being called out for the Ambassador's hunting dog. But he and Sharif Allad'in went back together nearly forty years to university together in Al-Khali. Mossy felt almost flattered to have been asked by his old friend. Even if it was a bloody nuisance right now.

Sharif Allad'in sighed deeply.

"In'sh'Offler" he said, simply.

"In'sh'Offler!" the room repeated, piously, as the life of the hunting dog ebbed away, assisted by a mercy dose of a strong sedative.

A funeral party composed of Klatchian Foreign Legionaries discreetly waited to honour the ambassador's wishes. Already a grave had been dug in the garden, and a firing party waited to send off the deceased with a twenty-one crossbow salute. **(1)**

"I wish I knew who did it." The ambassador declared. "Wounds like that are never accidental."

"I understand Sergeant Angua of the Watch found him and brought him back to the Embassy." Mossy said, out of a need to make polite conversation.

"Her kindness and concern have been fulsomely thanked."

"She believed some large feral animal took your dog. She is, apparently, investigating reports of some sort of leopard or perhaps a lion being at loose in this city."

"Perhaps a leftover from that business in the Park this summer." **(2) **the Ambassador said, flatly. "Or an escapee from this new Zoo. I too will have agents investigate!".

He reached down, and said a final goodbye, noting that people at the bedside were stepping involuntarily aside, leaving a trail as if to make it easier for somebody or something to get to the bed. The eyes of the hunting dog Thothmoses closed for the last time.

I TRUST WE WILL HAVE NONE OF THAT BUSINESS WITH THE SCYTHE THIS TIME said Death, as the soul of the hunting dog leapt and bounded into its afterlife.

In the mortal world, Mossy Lawn was requesting the Ambassador's permission to leave and get back to the business of ministering to humans. "The season of love and peace and goodwill and understanding among men notwithstanding, I tend to find admissions to Casualty quadruple at this time of year. People just don't get the message, do they?"

Death retrieved his scythe and made to go, largely unheeded in the psychic ether.

However, one person recognised him. The process of forgetting, for a Klatchian Foreign Legionnaire, also has the result of streamlining the mind and mental functions. With less to remember, you tend to remember that much more clearly, and one of the things you remember, as a twenty-five year veteran, is that the wall between the worlds of the living and the dead is pretty much an artificial construct. And if you've met Death before, as Sergeant-Major Cotton has, then you'll recognise him again.

"Here, _you_!" Cotton bellowed, stepping forwards. To everyone's consternation, he appeared to clutch empty air.

"_J'accuse!" _he called, as there are certain formalities to be respected. " You are the individual known as Private Beau Nidle of the Legion. I accuse you of the crime of desertion from the Klatchian Foreign Legion, into which you signed up for a twenty-year period, but in which you served less than six days!"

Death materialized, his bony wrist in the firm grip of Cotton.

OH, BUGGER! he said, feelingly.

For the Legion, one thing over-rides its motto of _Obliviscor._ **(3) **

Its collective memory for a deserter, from however long ago, for however brief an active enlistment period, and its collective desire to see justice done. This is such a strong imperative that it even binds and restricts Death - it is said, and justly, that the Legion is capable of reaching out beyond the grave to find and punish its problem children and deserters.

Therefore, Legion private, Tireilleur Nidle, B., a.k.a. Death, now has a pressing problem. Caught in a local field composed of justice, indignation, contempt and righteous anger, this over-rides his usual abilities to transcend the limitations of space and time and just walk away from it. Besides, he is on Klatchian soil, he has committed a crime on the Klatchian statute books, and they have the right. This is one of the oldest and most powerful magics of all.

"But.. this is Death!" the Ambassador blurted out. "The black camel that stalks the caravan of life!"

AND A DESERTER FROM THE KLATCHIAN FOREIGN LEGION, I'M SORRY TO SAY.

Death sighed.

SOME YEARS AGO, I DID ENLIST IN THE LEGION. AND I DID GO ABSENT WITHOUT LEAVE. THERE IS A CASE TO ANSWER.

Death turned to where a large white horse had appeared in the corner of the room, in defiance of all logic. A small scurrying thing in a miniature black robe climbed up its mane and looked Death eye-socket to eye-socket as he returned the scythe to its holster next to the saddle.

SQUEAK?

GO AND FIND SUSAN, BOTH OF YOU, EXPLAIN TO HER WHAT HAS HAPPENED AND ASK IF SHE CAN SEE HER WAY CLEAR TO COVERING THE DUTY UNTIL ALL THIS IS SORTED OUT. THANK YOU.

Death held out his wrists.

I THINK YOU'D BETTER SHOW ME TO MY CELL NOW. DON'T YOU?

* * *

**(1) **But carefully. The last full twenty-one crossbow salute at a funeral in the city had unhappily coincided with Watchwoman and Air Policewoman Olga Romanoff, a Lancre-trained witch, narrowly escaping multiple perforations as she flew past Small Gods cemetery. Today, shots and volleys fired into the air at funerals need to be notified to the Watch in advance.

**(2) **See my story **_Nature Studies_** in which various animal escapes necessitate an urban safari in Ankh-Morpork. In some ways - Johanna and Ponder - tthis is a sequel six months later.

**(3) Apart from the implanted command **_**Defence D'oublier!, **_**which is used on officers only as an over-ride function, to enable them to function and do the leading and thinking stuff that would be hampered by excessive forgetting. Any written order containing the trigger phrase **_**Defence D'oublier! **_**is automatically remembered. **


	6. Son et lumiere

_**Happy Hogswatch! A time for the family. By the end of the holiday, even the mildest of people might concede King Herod was on the right lines about childcare arrangements for the holiday…**_

The snow and wind hammered into the Assassins' ice-shelter like a sudden explosion of noise and darkness. For a long time, the violence of the storm made speech impossible and all that they could do was hug up close to a buddy for warmth and mutual reassurance. This rather suited ponder Stibbons, who after an early moment of apprehension realised that the racketing wind wasn't going to tear the roof off their shared sanctuary. Experts had shaped and cut and recessed the ice bricks against each other, after all. If anything, the blizzard was sealing them in more snugly by dropping an extra few feet of snowy insulation all over them. It suited Ponder Stibbons, anyway, he having been released by Ridcully, with a certain unholy glee, to participate in an exercise with the Assassins who had asked to borrow a flight-capable Wizard for a week.

Told "Orf you go, laddie, this is in the best traditions of these things, shame I wasn't fifty years younger or I'd have gorn meself!" , Ponder had borrowed a spare broomstick from the surprisingly moribund School of Aerothaumatics, lifted his staff, memorised a few obvious spells, and walked off into the wilds.

One thing had made it a lot easier for him: Johanna Smith-Rhodes, a lady Assassin who, since the early summer, had been featuring more and more in his life. It still lightly astounded him that she seemed to like him as much as she did, but like millions of other young men who suspect they've drawn a better hand than they merit in the game of love, he wasn't prepared to look too closely at this phenomenon in case it vaporised and blew away once attention was drawn to the fact.

And right now, in a world where light quality was shifting and rising and falling according to the barrage of snow on their position, where the air pressure was perceptibly rising up and down the barometer, Johanna was snuggled against him in a surprisingly warm snug place under the earth, he feeling the rise and fall of her chest against his as she dozed, her arms tightly wrapped against him, the feel of the outlines of her body and the weapons she was carrying lightly imprinted into him. With two of the girl students from the Guild immediately to his left and right, Ponder was appreciating what it was to be as snug as a bug in a rug, his mathematician's mind seeking to calculate the intensity of the storm buffeting them, as some mental habits are too ingrained to let go of.

It was quiet and calm in the shelter, most students accepting that the blizzard had delayed their return to the Guild and that they had no choice other than to hide in the shelter and tough it out. Most were asleep, or trying to doze: further down the shelter, the reassuring presence of Miss Alice Band, who was somewhere inside a layer of sleeping bags and blankets buddied up to her teaching assistant Jocasta Wiggs, was a silent reassurance to most of them. Nobody was inclined to panic yet, and it was also reluctantly accepted that hot food and drink would have to wait a few hours until circumstances permitted.

* * *

Back at the Guild, groups of students, under intermittent supervision from teaching staff, were working on Hogswatch decorations in both the communal and the semi-private House areas of the building. Several classrooms had been given over to the manufacture of paper chains and simple home-designed ornaments and decorations, with the School's Art Department sourcing for more crepe paper, tinsel, coloured card, and other raw materials. Mr Linbury-Court, the School's Head of Art, and his teaching staff, were supervising the work and ensuring (by popular agreement) that the fifteen dollar allocation to each house was spent communally on materials that would go the furthest distance possible. In one case, pupils from several Houses were collaborating on constructing the longest paper chain on the Disc. It was already about a hundred yards long, began just behind the main gate, circled around the Porters' Office (with the kind permission of Mr Maroon and Mr Stippler) , wound down the main cloister of the Quadrangle, and was now snaking round the Combination Corridor towards the Museum and Library.

Meanwhile, other teams were working in Big School, the Great Hall used for Assembly, some lectures, some indoor sports and High Meals.

Standing at ground level, Joan watched as teams of students edificeered up and down from the rafters in a carefree way, taking up ivy, glittery decorations, garlands, and of course the inevitable paper chains.

"Hey, miss!" a student called down to her. "I've just found your signature up here! Do you want to come and look?"

Joan smiled up. Climbing and edificeering had been her weakest subjects as a mature trainee. She had barely scraped a Pass grade, and even that had been with Alice Band giving her intensive personal tuition. It would be just like young Beardsmore to discover that, and inflict an insubordination on her under the pretence of being helpful. Well, no way, she thought: these old feet either stay firmly on the ground, or they use the stairs.

"No need, mr Beardsmore!" she called back. "I can tell you _exactly_ what you are looking at up there. There will be four names, including mine. The other three will be those of Miss Band, Madame Deux-Épées and Miss Smith-Rhodes, who as you know were part of my graduation class. There will also be a Latatian aphorism, or part of it, reading _mortifer quam male est."_

Joan paused, smiled, and turned the tables.

"Translate for me, if you please, Mr Beardsmore!"

"er… more deadly… deadlier… deadlier than…"

"_Deadlier than the male_, mr Beardsmore!" Joan's voice rang out, filling the available space, demanding attention. "The full saying runs, of course, _The female of the species is deadlier than the male. _**(1)**

"As the first four licenced female Assassins, we felt it was a point worth making when we were invited to sign the ceiling here. A privilege not everybody gets, incidentally."

Joan moved on, pausing only to confer with Art mistress Jocelyn Lansbury, a product of a later Mature Students' Class which had added several more lady teachers to the staff roster. They agreed that at this rate, it wouldn't be long before the communal areas of the Guild were adequately decorated, and then they could focus attention on the semi-public administrative corridors, and the internal space allocated to each of the boarding Houses.

"Just keep a gentle leash on the students and keep 'em from getting too giddy with excitement. Oh, and keep an eye on the bursary and registry corridors. I don't want any of them using this as an opportunity to slip into the wrong offices looking for next term's exam papers. There are a few I wouldn't put it past!"

* * *

**(1) **Does anyone know a better or more succinct Latin version of

_The female of the species is deadlier than the male. ? _There must be one, but I haven't been able to nail it.


	7. The story continues

**Another Hogswatch in Ankh-Morpork. More little glimpses into the lives of its people as they go about the business of the holiday…**

_**Interesting Hogswatch Facts no. 94.**_

It is an little –known fact, although no secret, that a significant, annually recurring, and most reliable revenue stream for the Guild of Fools and Joculators lies in the licencing of its joke books and pithy aphorisms to the firms that toil to make our Hogswatch crackers.

For this is the one part of the year where the modern Guild's attitude to humour is both welcomed and considered absolutely right and proper. The rigid quality control process insisted upon by the Council of Mirth and applying at all levels from Doctor Whiteface downwards is absolutely instrumental in ensuring that nothing _original,_ or _innovative_, or _modern_, or _daring _ends up being smudgily printed onto a slip of paper and inserted into your Hogswatch cracker.

The consumer of the product may relax in their ease, knowing that only the most welcome annual guests may enter their homes in the form of Hogswatch mottos. The makers of the crackers, such as Mr Johnstones of Theakler Street, carry on turning out a product of escellent quality. And of course the Guild receives licencing and copyright revenue on its oldest and dearest jokes, which are allowed their moment of glory at this season to bask in the warmth of the Hogswatch fire.

_{Ankh-Morpork Times, Advertising Feature, paid for by J.B. Johnstone and Sons, Mfctr's of Hogswatch Novelties)._

_On other pages: p22. Industrial Premises suspected of being used in the manufacture of Unlicenced Hogswatch Crackers burns down in mysterious circumstances. Dr Whiteface of the Guild suggests the alchemical powders used in the cracker strips were unstable and discounts the rumoured presence of Sergeant Clapstick and the Jolly Good Pals as "coincidental". _

_Several bodies were removed from the ruins, one with custard in its trousers. _

* * *

"It all started with the Watch-house"…. Vimes said, leading Nobby into the nursery. "Young Sam never really got out of the Book, it's still here somewhere and every so often he goes back to it, but they get older. You know how it is."

The upstairs nursery at Ramkin Manor had a lot of floor-space. It needed it for what was evolving.

"Daddy!" Young Sam called. "Uncer Nobby!"

"What's the mission for today, son?" Sam asked, finding just enough floor space to kneel in.

"Sergeant Detritus off to arrest Chrysoprase, Daddy!"

"Ah, if only…"

A large part of the nursery floor had become a meticuluously laid out streetscape of central Ankh-Morpork. Of course, this was filtered through the eye of an almost-five-year-old boy, so little concerns of scale and detail were not all they could have been.

But when Sam Vimes and Lady Sybil had retained the city's leading manufacturer of dolls' houses to do an absolute scale replica of Pseudopolis Yard for a son who was growing out of a once-beloved Book, they had started something.

Especially when Mr Greenwood and Mr Ball of the Guild of Artificiers had been commissioned to create model figures of the Watch, known suspects, and well-known faces about Town, so as to populate Young Sam's watch-house. This had become Young Sam's must-have toy, and a focal point for creative play between father and son. Sam Vimes, father, realised the idea was ballooning when he came home one night and discovered Purity the nurse had been dragooned into helping create an Opera House out of old cardboard boxes, and the carpet was acquiring its surface of streets, civic features and ground-plans of other city buildings (where they weren't being mocked up out of old cardboard boxes and teacrates).

Sam and Nobby found themselves drawn into a convoluted plot where Chrysophrase and Boggis of the Guilds of Thieves were conspiring to kidnap the figure representing Lord Vetinari, whilst some animals had broken out of the City Zoo. (this had been another commission from the maker of dolls' houses and populated by models drawn from the usual sources. Vimes had worried slightly about a very clear representation of Johanna Smith-Rhodes, the lady Assassin who had a lot to do with the Zoo: she was also one of his special constables, and he wondered about the severity of her reaction if she were to find out. Still, he'd raise it with her, sometime. Maybe another donation to the Zoo or the Animal Management Unit would ease it over.

"My dad made me some toy soldiers once" Nobby said, his eyes forty years in remembrance of the past. "Wouldn't say they was as detailed as this, but the teeth come out and the boots come off."

"The Hogfather could be dropping off some more this year" Sam Vimes said. "For a little boy who likes his Watch and his City!"

The three of them carried on playing, Vimes doing the voices of the evil people who wanted to capture the City, Nobby doing the voices for his fellow Watchmen, young Sam arguing Nobby couldn't have Auntie Angua on the board as a lady AND as a wolf at the same time, until Lady Sybil called them down for dinner. The two Sams, father and son, grinned at each other in bonded affection, and Uncle Nobby (invited to eat with the Vimeses) felt an uncharacteristic warmth that he couldn't put down to the brandy.

* * *

Dinner was also in session at the Guild of Assassins. The tables had been laid out in Big School so that everyone could eat together, under the eyes of the dignitaries on High Table.

One of the first things Colonel Maurice had done on arriving at the Guild had been to give 71-Hour Ahmed his sword back, with a bow and a formality.

"Please, mon ami. My wife is a stickler for formal dress and she would look down upon an Assassin without a sword. I would not have you dishonoured."

Ahmed bowed back. "Your kindness does you honour, _offendi_. Offler will remember this moment when he is selecting righteous infidels who are worthy of Paradise."

And then she had found them, and with cries of joy and delight, Emmanuelle was suddenly a dutiful Quirmian Army wife again.

Ahmed, ignored after his initial introduction, had put on a wry grin for all of five seconds, then recalled the reputation this savagely beautiful woman had.

_Would I be married to her? For a night, perhaps. For a lifetime, yes, but it would be a very short lifetime. _

The Klatchian Embassy porters who had accompanied them with luggage were sent to drop it off in relevant prepared rooms, then tipped and sent back to the Embassy. Emmanuelle took her husband by the arm and took him to her quarters in Black Widow House, which for the period would be his too. Ahmed grinned, and went to find his allocated room.

* * *

And here, a couple of hours later at dinner, the Colonel was in his full dress uniform, up on High Table with his wife and mixing with the dignitaries. The in-school remnant of Black Widow House had been directed to sit with the remnant of Tump House: this left Joan Sanderson-Reeves, the School's deportment and etiquette teacher , in a position to keep an eye on everyone's table manners. As she taught them, this was no small thing.

Whilst deliriously happy to have Maurice at home, Emmanuelle still felt guilty at leaving her girls under Joan's supervision. In normal circumstances, she would have been sitting there presiding over Black Widow House at mealtimes, and she was a lot more lenient than Joan concerning table etiquette: she forgave a lot, and only saw reason to rebuke if somebody were being disgusting or disrespectful of her fellows.

She sighed, and looked down High Table. Lord Downey, several senior Guild members, almost all male apart from Lady T'Malia and Lady de Meserole, who was representing the Patrician. There was that strange Klatchian fellow who'd flown in with Maurice, whom everyone was holding in esteem and respect, and Lord and Lady Rust had accepted a dinner invitiation.

In an incongrouously mellow Morporkian accent, the Klatchian fellow, assisted by Maurice, was discussing the current political and economic situation in Klatch and Hersheba. All present at the table were giving their views respect and due consideration, and it was a pity it was punctuated with piercing, carrying, comments such as _"ELBOWS, Miss Skelmersdale!"_ and _"Miss Matthews, may I remind you that you do NOT use the fish knife for the meat course?"_ and the inevitable "_ELBOWS, boy! The dining table is NOT a place to rest one's wretched ELBOWS!"_

Amused, Emmanuelle looked around herself to see virtually every male at High Table, including Lord Downey, swiftly and sheepishly taking his elbows off the table. This also applied to 71-hour Ahmed, a man usually afraid of nothing, and to her husband, the much-decorated Legion colonel. She bit a giggle back. _But name of several names, I owe my poor girls a favour after subjecting them to Joan. Who is lovely and delightful and has been a good friend to me, but in certain circumstances, is something of a harridan._


	8. a very Quirmian noise

**Another Hogswatch in Ankh-Morpork. More little glimpses into the lives of its people as they go about the business of the holiday…**

And now it was after midnight and technically Hogswatch Eve. A heavier snow shower than usual, probably a hold-over from a more serious blizzard out in the hills, had passed over the City depositing a refresher layer of suspiciously clean white everywhere it touched. The lines and contours of the Assassins' Guild complex had certainly been softened and smoothed, with little outcrops of the black stone underneath sticking out like broken teeth or inanimate dead gargoyles. Living gargoyles had gathered together in clusters for warmth and were huddled, invisibly, under blankets of snow.

Joan turned away from the window, irritably. She'd once heard that this was how little gargoyles were made, during harsh winters when their parents clustered together for warmth in heavy snow. It sounded jolly unhygienic to her, and apart from that, she was worried that her innocent looking- out- of- the- window could be mistaken for voyeurism.

And speaking of things in the night…

She sat in the darkened space of the house-mistress's quarters in Tump House, sipping a very late hot chocolate and silently damning Emannuelle for indirectly making more work for her.

_Ah well, Alice is going to be back this time tomorrow from the survival exercise_ she thought. Outside the damnable noise went on.. _Then I can give her Tump House back, and go to my own comfortable little home in Ankh which I have not seen for over a week now, for one reason or another. And little social embarrassments like this are her problem. _

There was a knock on the door. Joan sighed, fearing a pupil, or another delegation of insomniac pupils.

_I mean. I don't mind covering for Alice while she's away running them up and down the hills at minus three, but what the education process laughably calls "personal and social development" is for the resident house-teachers to sort out, they're with them twenty-four and eight. _

"Come!" she said, imperiously. _Although in my circumstances, I don't mind doing menopause and general grumpy old woman as part of their PSD. Something for them to look forward to when they see fifty looming up on the horizon. No, right now it's the other thing that's the rather embarrassing problem. _

"It's only me, Joan!"

"Ah, thought you were a pupil. There's some hot chocolate in the jug. I'll say this for Alice, she buys the best!"

"Thanks" said Dr Davinia Bellamy, the botany mistress. Like Joan, her teaching contract was normally working-day-only, but she had been called in to cover Raven House while Johanna was out with the survival class. Reasoning her husband and sons could fend for themselves for a few days, she'd accepted the extra assignment and minimal overtime pay for the experience and as a favour to Johanna.

"Jo did say to make myself at home, but all she seems to have in is a box of _ruibush _tea. Good for aches and scrapes and general time-of-the-month, but not all that tasty, I have to say."

She poured herself a chocolate. Despite the closed windows, the noise started up again from the direction of Black Widow House.

"Same problems in Raven House?" Joan inquired, raising an eyebrow.

"Ye Gods!" Davinia said. She and Joan had a student-mentor relationship which had begun at the time of Davinia's arrest for unlicenced assassination: guided through mature entry by Joan, the two women had developed a friendship which in the previous three years had involved occasionally working together as Ethical Assassins** (1)** and splitting the fee afterwards.

In appearance Davinia was a bespectacled plump, red-cheeked, mumsy blonde approaching forty. However, any student overconfident enough to mistake this for _soft touch_ was very soon to become a sorry and better educated student.

It was the rule for the House Mistress to tour the dorms just before midnight to ensure all her girls were there, accounted for and asleep.

Davinia had found a group of fifth year pupils sitting up and playing cards whilst the…. **_Noise_**…. drifted over from Black Widow House.

Bullying them back into bed again, pausing to observe to that dratted Fourecksian girl Grinder that if I were you, I'd fold on a hand like that, so I am doing you a _favour_ by ending the game here, miss! It had been Grinder's partner in crime, the Foggy Islander Miss Donaldson, who had raised a hand, pretended innocence, and said in her nasal antipodean voice

"Please miss, what's happening to Madame Deux-Épées across the quad on Black Widow House?She's making an awful lot of _noise_ over there. Is she in _pain_, miss? Can't somebody go across and check? She might be being _murdered,_ miss!"

Davinina, watching the other girls go into slumping sniggers, know when she was being conned. Besides, the Donaldson girl was nearly sixteen, and had therefore had sixteen good chances to figure out what happens in tupping season every year and where little lambs come from on a sheep station.

Davinia pointed this fact out in no uncertain terms, adding that anyone who hadn't made that connection by the age of sixteen was really quite seriously dense. And I don't think you're that dense, miss Donaldson, so very kindly extend the same courtesy to me! Madame Deux-Épées _and her husband _are doing exactly what I myself would be doing had I been separated from my husband for ten months! In fact, Peter and I would be now be trying damned hard for a fourth child! And if you still can't work it out at the age of sixteen, you will in the next few years, if you are normal young women, be making every attempt to find out!"

Davinia followed up with the Look that her husband and sons associated with "We're in trouble with Mum", allowed it to intimidate the girls into silence, said "Goodnight", and decided to go and see Joan.

"At it like a bloody cat!" Joan sighed. "I just wish they'd have the common courtesy and the common sense to close the wretched window! It must be echoing round the whole Guild!"

"How many times is that now?" asked Davinia.

"Four, five." shrugged Joan. "Surely no man can go more than five times in a night?"

"Well" Davinia said, thoughtfully, "It perhaps explains what she saw in him. He must be a good twenty years older than she is!"

There was another knock on the door.

"I hope you've brought a bottle!" Joan called, semi-seriously.

Pretty Butterfly bowed. She was Agatean by nationality, and taught Agatean Language and Culture, and Martial Arts. She wore a pure black kimono, with the purple teaching sash of the Guild in her case worn around the waist as an _obi._

"I have some self-heating _sake_ from home." she said. "I believe three of us can benefit from a drink."

She bowed and offered the flask. Joan bowed back.

"That, my dear, will do nicely. Have you just come from the University?"

Butterfly smiled. "I do so like reminding Professor Rincewind of our old friendship. I treasure the many looks that pass over his countenance when I join him at dinner. He is an old friend I do not wish to forget, and now we are both working in the same city, we have no excuse but to keep up our association."

She smiled, enigmatically, and composed her kimono.

"And you're also quite fond of the chap, aren't you?" Joan said, sipping the warm satisfying sake.

"I am fond of many people" Butterfly responded, evenly. "Professor Rincewind is but one such person, to whom I would wish to see no harm happen. He was good to my father. He helped bring about a satisfying change in the nature of the Empire. Yes, I believe I am his friend. It amuses me that he believes I am something other and dies a thousand deaths when I am near!"

The three teachers shared the sake, participated in a Zen moment, and waited for the embarrassing Quirmian noise of loving couple and musical bedsprings to come to a final end…

* * *

**(1) Ethical Assassins. **As freelances, Joan and Davinia had only inhumed men who were lacking in some way, child-abusers, wife beaters, nasty bullying people, those who would make the earth a tiny bit cleaner for their passing. As both had independently practiced under the name of The Marriage Guidance Counsellor, they agreed to team up as the Counsellors and monitor new contracts for clients who met not just the inhumation standards of the Guild, but those of the Marriage Guidance Counsellors.


	9. The crunch of snow

**Another Hogswatch in Ankh-Morpork. More little glimpses into the lives of its people as they go about the business of the holiday…**

The blizzard wheeled and screamed and sang , slightly muffled underneath a growing thickness of snow, but loud enough to make ordinary conversation impossible. Candles flickered, guttered and went out with changes in air pressure. People tried to doze and sleep, ignoring the occasional trickle of a droplet of meltwater down the back of the neck, or the disturbance of a neighbour occasionally flexing their muscles and changing position against cramp. Ponder Stibbons tried, philosophically, to avoid the deduction that with Johanna dozing in his arms and his back to the ice wall, he was getting the water droplets for both of them. He suspected getting her share of the ice-cold water dripping down the back of the neck, as well as his, was a component part of romance. Intrinsically so, in fact. **(1)**

The student Assassin to his left stirred and nudged him. She passed him a piece of tightly folded paper. His name was on the outside. He unfolded it and read

_Professor Stibbons. Is there a surefire way to test for the presence of a God? I suspect one is nearby and would like to know, for my own information, if the deity is benevolent or otherwise. A.B._

Ponder nodded: he'd had this discussion with Alice Band on the trail. Then, it had been academic: they had agreed on the observed truth that people of a psychic dispensation may sense nearby Gods and supernatural agencies such as Death, yes. As a Wizard, she had said, you have a headstart in this. As an Assassin, it would be a very useful skill to have. You know Lord Vetinari absolutely forbids people to be double graduates – somebody cannot be both a Wizard and an Assassin, they'd be just _too _powerful, and know too much.**(2)**

Ponder had reflected on one thing Johanna had told him about Alice.

"How do you know you haven't got it too?" he asked. "After all, you're from one social grouping, personality type, call it what you will, that routinely talks to the gods. Your father was a Bishop, wasn't he? And if he was anything like Hughnon Ridcully, I bet he could tune in to the God-Consciousness and tell you exactly what they're all up, to and where in the world they're walking."

"Hughnon's my uncle." Alice had said, weakly. Ponder nodded.

"I've seen him tune in. He's really impressive. I believe you could do it yourself, miss Band. It'll be in your blood".

She had frowned, then smiled.

"OK, but not in front of the pupils." she said. "I've heard my father and my uncle, and some of the things that go out on the God-consciousness late at night are _not_ for children!"

And now, Ponder looked at her note and frowned. Johanna awoke, cat-like, from deep sleep to complete conscious self-awareness in a matter of seconds. Ponder had seen lionesses at the Zoo do the same: it un-nerved him slightly.

"So what would you use?" she asked, curiously. Ponder found it in an inner pocket, and unwrapped it with care.

"The common thaumometer!" he half-shouted. "There are several frequency bands where you'd look for direct or indirect evidence of a god having passed. Gods themselves show up on the highest frequency cycles…"

He jiggled the cube into life and manipulated its controls. Several student Assassins followed what he was doing, trained as they were not to disdain any knowledge, nor to disregard the potential of any new machine that might just deliver an edge.

Its screen flared into life, showing green and blue fire in the form of fine flickering sine curves. Ponder adjusted the settings, seeking to read not only _now_ but also _immediate past_ and _immediate future_. Gods moved in a nebulous cloud that covered all three simultaneously. He also tried to remember his training and some useful, but necessarily surreptitious, research work he'd done with HEX.

"Oh dear!" he said, eventually. Johanna became fully alert.

"Whet is it?" she asked, through the growing roar of the blizzard outside.

"How many young girls have we got here?" he shouted.

""Seventeen!" replied Johanna.

"If any of them, and this is vitally important, if any of them get up and try to dance, they must be physically restrained!" Ponder shouted. "We don't have a God here as such, you'll be pleased to know, but what there IS out there is a very strong elemental force!"

"Ellice must hev sensed it!" Johanna half-shouted back. "But why no dencing?"

"Because it's the Wintersmith!" shouted Ponder. "He has a fascination for mortal girls. It's caused problems before".

Johanna's mouth made an "O" of understanding, then she was scribbling a brief note to be sent down to Alice at her end of the trench.

"The Wintersmith is new to me, on this continent. But I believe I might hev glimpsed the Summer Lady in the deep desert meny years ego." she said to Ponder. "End you know whet? She wes bleck!"

"External form is optional for Gods and the supernatural." said Ponder. "Perhaps it was to teach you a lesson?"

"Thet a Goddess might hev a bleck skin." Johanna said. "To my people, thet's a _big_ lesson!"

* * *

Susan Sto Helit had passed from annoyance to anger and back to a sort of calm again in the hour or so since Quoth and the Death of Rats had delivered the news about Grandfather. She was no stranger to these situations, after all. And the fact it had happened on Hogswatch Eve was just a courtesy detail.

She had dismissed Rat and Raven, and then consumed several chocolates whilst deciding on a plan of action. Finally, possibly the most lethal teacher not to have a contract at the Assassins' Guild School**(3) **went out to inform Mr Slant of the Lawyers' Guild that he had an appointment with her. She took great care to dress for the job that she was currently covering, as appearance counts for many things, and it would be a discourtesy to go to the City's most powerful lawyer without paying the greatest of attention to her clothing and professional demeanour.

She took a look at herself in the full-length mirror, and nodded. The appearance that she presented was just right. She needed to present a personality that carried respect and inspired obedience. And she going to have to out-Alpha an Alpha Male who was so far up the alphabet that he looked down on everyone else from a notional position way above Alpha. Compared to him, all other alpha males were the sort of sad uncompetitive Betas who'd given up on the promotion game and were one step away from being househusbands.

In short, this had better _**work**_ if she were to get Grandfather out of this one. She reviewed the sort of arguments that would make sense to this person, and grinned into the mirror. There was absolutely no humour in it. Then her boot-heels rattled against the floor covering with the exact regularity of a clock ticking down the moments.

Susan Sto Helit was off to present a legal case.

* * *

"Rincewind tells me that another way of making sure there are Gods nearby is when you hear the rattle of dice, but nobody's playing" Ponder shouted. "All to do with this Game they play in Dunmanifestin. Rincewind and Captain Carrot got close enough to see the board. It's no metaphor, nothing so trivial".

Johanna nodded. She was fighting an urge to dance. As far as she could tell, nobody else was. This might be embarrassing. She asked about the dancing thing.

"Anyone usurping the role of the Summer Lady can upset the balance of nature. It's known to have happened not long ago. Until the witches could work out a solution, it caused Lancre and the Chalk to remain in the grip of deep winter well into summer, in a mini ice age. And now the Wintersmith knows what he's been missing for millennia, you can be sure if he can get to kiss another young maiden, he will."_After all_, thought Ponder_, I got to the age of thirty and I'd only ever had that brief moment with Dioamanda in Lancre. Until I met Johanna this summer I never really knew what I was missing, either._

"Does it hev to be a…you know… maiden?" Johanna asked. To her surprise she found her cheeks going red.

"well, it always seems a given in magic." Ponder said, cheerfully. "Nobody knows why. But young girls and, er, _maidens_, do have the edge. The Wintersmith's object of desire was only thirteen, for instance. So if he were look down and discover a dozen or so right underneath his blizzard, he'd be interested. But research magic has demonstrated age is no bar so long as the essential, er, _quality of maidenhood _is there. I once saw a witch in Lancre, who must have been well over seventy, tether a unicorn with a single strand of her hair. She had a friend, who'd, er, chalked up a bit of experience, shall we say. If the friend had tried to tame the unicorn she would have been gored to death."** (4)**

Johanna hoped nobody could see how red her face was going. She recalled she'd joked with Ponder about getting a unicorn for the Zoo. She also felt uneasy that even with thirty rapidly approaching, one of the fiercest animals on the Disc would come tamely to her call. That it would trample Emmanuelle on its way to her was a courtesy detail.

"The Archchancellor was really surprised when he worked it out. He'd been, _er_, with that witch nearly fifty years before the business with the unicorn!"

_And I've been er with you for six months, Ponder Stibbons. s_he thought. _And I can still tame a unicorn._

"So.. this Wintersmith might work through me, _jawelno?" _

"It's possible" Ponder said, noting she was slipping into Vondalaans again. "You said something about having glimpsed the (he signed the letters "S" and "L" in the air.) once?"

"In the desert et Home" she said. "I wes with Matti Benthuis looking for a source of water. Something kept pulling us into the deeper drier desert. There were _goggas_ es big es small ponies out there with teeth like crocodiles. I thought we were going to die out there. Then I saw the…" Ponder laid a finger on her lips.

"Another old rule of magic." he said . "This close to a powerful entity, don't summon the thing he's looking for. Don't say the name!"

"A woman, in native clothes, bleck skinned. She saw us end laughed. Not a nice laugh. Then everything changed end we were near a watering hole. The Bushmen found us, end drew the rest of the commando to the water. They said we were lucky. She could hev left us to die as we'd intruded in her place. But she'd taken a whim end shown us to water instead."

"That's it, then" said Ponder." He's sensed you. Look, let's talk other things, anything else. How are the marmosets getting on at the zoo?"

And above, the Wintersmith rode the storm. There were humans underneath, certainly, scattered groups and individuals out here in the open, and the whole painful intensity of hundreds of thousands of them in the big city. He'd had a maddeningly brief fix: there was a human female here from a faraway country, where humans dwelt in perpetual spring and summer and his own influence spread only to a little few corners of permanent ice on the very highest mountains. He _could_ visit Howondaland, but only with an effort, and only to find his powers very much diminished. But the girl down below had seen Her, the female he only glimpsed twice a year, and carried an achingly tiny part of Her signal into the deeps of the winter with her. He circled, looking for Her, the Summer Lady from the far summer country of Howondaland. Below, Johanna and Ponder discussed housing zoo animals, perhaps setting aside some tamer specimens as a petting zoo for children. Who, being Ankh-Morpork children, would be very tightly guarded against accidents.

Maybe four hours into the storm, Ponder was asked to make his way to the central area where he, Johanna and Alice had worked out a cooking pit, based on a large flat stone, and lined wit whatever insulating stones and rock could be found. The inside of a large pot had been part-filled with biltong, and the pot topped up with locally collected clean snow. It took Ponder's staff and a softly repeated slow-heating spell to set about a localised heating effect that caused the snow to melt and the pot to begin warming. Getting it absolutely right had taken time and effort: too vigorous a heating spell, and the pot would melt its way right down to true ground level, maybe even bedrock, taking their dried meat ration with it. Too sluggish, and the meat stew would take days. Just right over a period of two hours, and there would be a warm dinner for everyone.

Ponder 's spell, in essence, was one of speaking to the snow-melt, reminding it that it had been water in many times and places before, and must at some point have experienced being heated and boiled. Wouldn't it, the water, like to be warm again, especially in this cold place? You were hot once, you remember being hot, you know how to do it.**(5)** He kept the spell going whilst Assassin pupils kept adding snow to the pot, and eventually said "That should be self-sustaining now. Let me know if there are any problems". _Apart from telling the Wintersmith there's a wizard down here. It'll shine out like a beacon! _

_**TO BE CONTINUED. **_

* * *

**(1)** In his very early thirties, this might only have been Ponder's second attempt at a love affair. But being a late starter doesn't mean you have to be a slow learner. In fact, anything but.

**(2) **Vetinari had recently re-affirmed this position, by clarifying to the Assassins' Guild that he would not be happy about any young woman with a potential for witchcraft being trained as an Assassin.

**(3) **Although they had tried. They had tried. The current offer read something like "_we know of no occasion where you have inhumed for money, and although you were responsible for the inhumation of Guild member Jonathon Teatime, you claimed no fee for it for which we are aware. Mr Teatime's demise leaves a vacancy within the Guild for an Assassin with a particular specialised interest. We believe you would make an exemplary member of the teaching faculty, and in your case we are prepared to waive formal Guild training and offer you a purely honorary full membership. With your special area of expertise and interest, we are prepared to endow the _**Jonathan Teatime Memorial Chair in Dealing With the Eldrich and the Supernatural.**_ Our opening offer to you to come and teach for us at the A.G. School would be…. "_ (_followed by a large amount expressed in dollars_) Should Susan ever accept a teaching contract offer at the Assassins' School, her topic areas might well be _Funereal Rites, Dress and Deportment for Young Female Assassins_, and _Clear and_ _Logical Thinking._

(4) See _**Lords and Ladies. **_

**_(5)_** This is the effect of Druidic belief on the modern profession. Charm And Persuasion in applied magic.


	10. Death's defence counsel

**Another Hogswatch in Ankh-Morpork. More little glimpses into the lives of its people as they go about the business of the holiday… where a family gets together in December, there will be lawyers in January…**

Mr Slant nodded benevolently in the direction of his principal clerk, Mr Henry Lawsy. Lawsy's long thin figure was sitting in the clerk's high chair, making the final few entries in the legal ledger, his hands partially protected against the chill in the outer office by the fingerless gloves he was wearing.

Although Mr Slant needed no warmth and was notably cautious in the presence of naked flames – they mixed only too well with formaldehyde – he was sympathetic to Lawsy's discomfort and made a mental note to raise it with the coalman that there had been no delivery that day. Lawsy was a loyal employee and had volunteered to be the last man in the office this evening, arguing that as he lived with his elderly mother, who in any case had been invited to Brindisi for the season to stay with a friend there **(1), **he really didn't have much of a Hogswatch to prepare for, sir. Far better the men with wives and children are excused first.

Reading between the lines, Mr Slant had conferred with his associates Mr Honeyplace and Mr Morecombe, and a Hogswatch gift had been prepared for Henry: tickets to the Opera House, followed by a reserved place at one of the best restaurants, and (should he wish to take advantage of it) a Seamstresses' Guild seasonal token**(2)** made out to the bearer for an appreciably high value. _He can always trade it in for its cash value, less Seamstresses' Guild tax, and no-one will think the worse of him_ Slant thought.

Slant was a surprisingly generous employer to his staff. He knew to reward loyalty, and Lawsy was loyal. A merely human legal junior working for a zombie and two vampires was never likely to gain promotion on the "dead mans' shoes" principle, and might never get to be a partner, but was happy enough to remain relatively lowly for the experience of working for the best legal practice in the City.

Slant noted it was coming close to seven o'clock. Even though the Law worked late and some parts of it never closed, it was unlikely there would be more business coming in through the door.

"Any more appointments, Mr Lawsy?"

Slant thought he heard Lawsy beginning to say "No, sir…" and then the air went heavy and confusing for a second. Slant's head spun as if something were unravelling. A blur moved in the air.

"And how is Tiny Tim, Mr Cratchett?" Slant found himself saying, strange words that had intruded from somewhere. He shook his head.

Lawsy looked puzzled for a second, then said, "Oh, I beg pardon, sir. It says here, seven pee-emm, you have a late appointment with Susan, Duchess of StoHelit." _But it's not in my handwriting? Whose is this heavy old-school copperplate?_

Mr Slant shook off the momentary annoyance. This was nobility. Who were good for business and could, in the main, pay his fees without flinching. Worth staying open for.

"Then show her ladyship in, Mr Lawsy."

"No need. I am here."

She was sitting on the edge of Slant's desk. Her legs crossed with a hint of silken swish. Her clothes suggested a very strict late-night nanny and held a hint of menace for those alert enough to recognise the signs.

"Then how may we help you, my lady?"

"My grandfather has run into some trouble dating from an ill-advised visit to Klatch some years ago. I need a good lawyer. The best. One who can get him out of trouble with the minimum of fuss and delay. How good are you at Klatchian law, Mr Slant? And military law?"

Slant tried not to show discomfort at her deep penetrating glare. As a zombie, he was no slouch at penetrating stares himself, as he'd directed enough of them at the judge, the opposing counsel and even at a recalcitrant jury to win cases. However, _this_ one earned prizes, in his book, for strength and fury.

"Military law, madam, is on the whole simple and stripped down to its essentials. It has to be so, as it is down to soldiers to understand and apply it. And they are very simple people. Oh, all armies have their legal departments to run and co-ordinate things. But I recall from law school that only the less, ah, intellectual, candidates in my year were advised to join the Armed Forces. These were seen as a haven for less, ah, _strong _candidates."

"So if you were asked to defend a client facing a court-martial for desertion, you are confident that you could get him off?"

"Please speak to me of your grandfather and the circumstances." Slant invited her.

Susan gave him a substantially accurate version of Grandfather's local difficulty, leaving out that he was Death , as people tended to have a problem with that, and in any case she didn't want to disclose this to Slant until it was time to discuss the fee. She wanted a bargaining counter.

"I see." Slant said. "He frequently visits Klatchian soil on business, and recently had a task to perform at the Embassy. Here, a member of the Foreign Legion gate guard recognised him as a deserter and arrested him. He joined the Legion some years ago in a moment of madness, at a time when this city was indeed afflicted by madness relating to Music with Rocks In. He soon realised it was no life for him, and deserted after five days. He remains in detention in the Embassy compound and the court-martial is set for three tomorrow afternoon. Yes, I believe I can get him acquitted. My initial fee will be…"

"Pro bono" Susan said, hurriedly.

Slant raised an eyebrow.

"PRO BONO!" she repeated, in a commanding voice.

"I NEVER TOLD YOU WHAT MY GRANDFATHER DOES BY WAY OF WHAT LIVING PEOPLE CALL "A LIVING",DID I?"

"Now I come to reflect" Mr Slant said, trying not to sound shaken, "there was talk about the Duchess of Sto Helit having a family secret. Something runs in your family, does it not?"

"WITH MY GRANDFATHER TEMPORARILY INDISPOSED, MR SLANT, IT IS MY FATE TO COVER THE DUTY"

Her hair stood out in all directions, like the negative of a dandelion clock, and the scythe of Duty had flown into her hands.

"GRANDFATHER PASSED YOU OVER SEVERAL HUNDRED YEARS AGO. ALL ZOMBIES HAVE A CERTAIN ARRANGEMENT WITH HIM. THE RULES SAY I ALSO HAVE TO HONOUR SUCH…DEFERMENTS. BUT YOU DON'T KNOW WHERE AND WHEN THAT DEFERMENT WILL END AND HE – OR HIS APPOINTED REPRESENTATIVE – MIGHT CALL FOR YOU."

Mr Slant nodded, unable to speak. As a Zombie, he knew Undead status was only provisional and depended. in many respects, on Death's good graces. Susan clicked the handle and the scythe blade extended. Slant's eyes widened. How did this new Death view him? Young, female, largely unknown? Was she bound by the unspoken bargain he had with her grandfather? Mr Slant had to admit it to himself - he was afraid. It was a new emotion.

"I BELIEVE GRANDFATHER HAS SOME FREEDOM OF ACTION CONCERNING EXTENDED LIFE. HE WILL BE GRATEFUL FOR YOUR HELP. AND WHAT YOU DO NOW PRO BONO ALLOWS YOU, WHO KNOWS, SEVERAL HUNDRED YEARS MORE, TO DO AS YOU WILL AND MAKE THE WHOLE OF THE LAW. LOOK UPON IT AS BEING PAID IN A RESOURCE MORE VALUABLE THAN MERE MONEY. "

Mr Slant nodded again.

"I will act for your grandfather" he said. "You make a very persuasive case for my working pro bono."

"Thank you, mr Slant!" Susan said, human and female again, the scythe having dropped back into its own dimension.

They shook hands.

"Now if you excuse me, I have other duties to perform."

"Oh. Yes."

"But not _here_. Not for some time, Mr Slant, if we all stay friends!"

"I'll go and talk to the Klatchians" the old lawyer declared. "Mr Lawsy, prepare a letter, if you will…"

She had a quarter-pound of Weinrich and Boettcher's best in her bag. Once mounted on Binky and climbing above the city, she allowed herself one. _Strawberry. Lovely, a taste of late summer._ She looked Hubwards. A blizzard was raging in the lower hills. It was tinged with green and yellow fire. Some magical component? _Ah well, I'll find out if anyone dies there and I have to call for them. Till then, somebody else's problem Quite a few lives, too, but nobody in immediate danger._

* * *

**(1) See **_**Maskerade **_for details of Henry and his dear old mum – and dad

**(2)** Well, on some worlds there are only **book** tokens. Think a few letters of the alphabet further along for Rosie Palm's latest innovation…


	11. Wintersmithery

**Another Hogswatch in Ankh-Morpork. More little glimpses into the lives of its people as they go about the business of the holiday… where a family gets together in December, there will be lawyers in January…**

wOW - ALMOST FINISHED! Perhaps three shortish chapters to go...

* * *

Down in the temporary snow-bunker, Alice added the last of the dehydrated vegetable and oatmeal to the stewpot, wondering, not for the first time, if bringing a wizard along had been a bit of a cheat.

Then she reflected that she was going to get her first hot meal in twenty-four hours very soon, something which might have been impossible or difficult to achieve without recourse to what Professor Stibbons described as _intelligently applied magic_. Ponder had said that "in the old days, any competent wizard would have used a fireball spell to start a fire or to heat water. The drawback is, he wouldn't have used it to save life. It would have been full-force and uncontrollable and designed to blast somebody to eternity on a plume of superheated steam. Which is probably not what you need when you have a shelter full of forty people who have just walked ten miles in the snow and then dug themselves in against a blizzard and could use some more fundamental magic, of the sort generated by a hot thick stew and a mug of tea with lots of sugar in".

So, Ponder had explained right at the start of the exercise, we've been working on new, experimental, spells which basically begin with the old, lethal, ones, and find new uses for them. (At this point in the explanation, several of the brighter student assassins had exchanged looks and spread out a little, with one eye on the nearest cover)

Ponder had then demonstrated that for the same expenditure of energy involved in the old _**Fireball!**_ or _**Agnew's Agent Orange**_ **(1) **spell, a bonfire could be sustainably lit from the soggiest and most unpromising wood, or the energy which had previously been chaotically expended in a fraction of a second could be spread out across minutes, as a controlled release that would safely being ice to the boiling point, and therefore the starting point for tea or coffee.

To everyone's surprise, except perhaps Johanna's (as one of the Guild's experts in exothermic alchemy, she had attended trials at the University and witnessed the potential) the new magics had performed superbly. But then, a combination of HEX, Ponder Stibbons and Professor Rincewind (as test-pilot) had rewritten the old destructive spells, and she had every faith in them.

The wizard, his face lost in what could have either been deep concentration or a half-aware trance, removed the tip of his staff from the side of the cooking pot. Alice nodded, and took a spoonful of the broth. It was hot, and it had a few shreds of meat floating in it, _Soon be time to call for mess tins to be sent up_, she thought. The drill was simple: have a continual cycle of empty mess tins coming up and full ones going back until everybody had a full tin, even if it wasn't the empty one they'd started with. Then seconds, on the first-come first served principle, until the cook-pot was empty and could be sent to those on fatigues to clean out as best they can.

And for those lucky to be nearest the cooking area, there was that bit of extra warmth, as well as the life-restoring food-smell caused by dried meat reconstituting, swelling and breaking down in the pot.

"Thank you, Professor Stibbons" she said, politely. "Does that take energy out of you?"

"Up to a point." Ponder said. "The magic is mainly stored in the staff, which is my own. When it was formally presented to me on my graduation, the staff was magically bonded to me and to nobody else. Of course, a higher level wizard, like the Arch-chancellor, could force it to his will if he wanted, but most of the time a staff only responds to its own wizard. I saw it was fully charged with magic before I left the University, as there are spells for using yourself as a channel for recharging a staff when it runs low on magic, but everything comes at a price. They tend to be the spells that really take it out of you."

She nodded. "You've managed to set up a hot dinner for us tonight, Professor, and I do thank you for that. I _know_ I should have made them have a cold meal more than just once, but…"

"…you're only human too!" Ponder said. "You should be aware, Miss Band, there are drawbacks to you employing wizards on Assassin missions. The most important one is that my using magic is going to stand out like a beacon in this wilderness. To anyone looking out for it, you should be aware I've just illuminated your position as if I'd lit a rocket flare. Any other magic user, or for that matter a non-human entity, can focus on the discharge and realise there are people out here."

"Can it be shielded?" Alice asked.

"It is possible. Or it could be made to look as if it was coming from somewhere else. In an icefield like this you can bounce quite a few reflections around and leave your searching entity guessing as to which is the true one. Gods tend to have a limited span of consciousness, anyway. If you make it too difficult or time-consuming for them they'll get bored and drift off, half the time. Disinformation, I believe you call it."

"Have you been trying that now?"

Ponder smiled, seeing the inference. "Yes. Trying to make it look as if the discharge of magic is happening anything up to a mile or two away from here. It might confuse anything that's watching. I think the…entity… is just riding the blizzard at the moment, with no particular reason or point, apart from the fact it just _is_."

"Joyriding, you might call it?" Alice asked.

"Indeed, Miss Band. Snow and ice and blizzards are its life and its sole - well, its biggest single - reason for being. And a blizzard of this type could cover up to a hundred square miles. It's very possible the entity of whom we are carefully refraining from naming wasn't immediately overhead, wasn't even looking this way, and the danger's over. It's certainly lessened off in the last hour or two. But we can't be sure until the blizzard either passes on or dies ."

"Well, there's time for a hot meal first." Alice said, smiling. She tapped a student on the shoulder. "Give the word for mess tins to start moving forward. We pass them on down the line until everyone has one, and then we eat. Got a ladle? Lovely. Let's begin!"

Eventually, they were able to settle down and eat themselves.

"So what you're saying" Alice said, thoughtfully, "is that magic is an asset. freely available to us, that should be used sparingly and with care".

Ponder nodded, as he worked on his dinner. A little tough, as the meat had started as Johanna's Howondalandian dried trail rations, but oh, it was _hot_.

"It inevitably leaves a trace." he said . "Which I should imagine is _not_ what you want, if your mission involves a stealthy concealed approach to the target. Believe me, Miss Band, there is currently no such thing as a stealth wizard, unless you count Mustrum Ridcully stalking a deer. As a profession, we seem to have selected for high-visibility high-prominence. The idea of _quiet, soft, inconspicuous_ and _concealed _seems to be alien to wizardry at present, I'm afraid to say. "

"You don't seem to be doing so badly, though!" Alice observed, with a wry smile. "You're in physically good shape. You kept up with the march. You've done your share of camp chores uncomplainingly. If you were one of my students, I'd be afraid to say I'd have to pass you with quite a high grade. But I'd have to ask, and forgive me if this sounds like a clumsy insensitive question. It isn't one you'd normally ask outright, you'd wait for the other person to tell you. Especially if they were also an Assassin, and as it isn't thought of as good manners, I apologise in advance." Alice got to the point**:(2)** "Have you ever killed somebody, or come close to killing anybody?"

"A few years ago in Lancre". Ponder fought down a shudder at the memory. "We went as Ankh-Morpork's delegation to the Royal Wedding. At the last minute, the Patrician pushed a scroll on board our coach saying the Arch-chancellor was his special representative, you see**(3)**. But the place was invaded. By Elves." Ponder shuddered at the memory. "We got separated. Myself, the Librarian and the Bursar had to fight our way to safety. The Librarian got most of them, but I'm sure I…" he patted his staff. Alice squeezed his hand kindly.

"I had to kill a few elves when I was in Lancre" she said, reassuringly. "When it's them or you, it isn't terrifically hard."

"These things come and go in waves, apparently," Ponder said. "Thirty or forty years ago, Wizards were killing each other by the score to get another rung up the ladder, and it wasn't unknown to have two Arch-chancellors inside a week."

"And we were pretty deeply involved, too" Alice said, thoughtfully. "There's a whole section of the Library about how the Assassin should go about inhuming a Wizard, that dates from this time. As often as not, you people were retaining _us_ to deal with inhuming men who were just too well magically protected**."(4)**

"And _our _Library has a whole section on how the Wizard should fight off Assassins." Ponder mused. "Also dating from the succession wars."

"Maybe we should trade books!"

"Already done. Jo found the books about dealing with Assassins in our library. The Librarian likes her, you see. He gave her a researcher's pass. She's trying to get me a reader's ticket to the Guild library."

"That won't get you into the Black Library" Alice cautioned.

Ponder reddened slightly.

"Jo says she can use her own ticket for that.." _And there's always L-Space. I'm surprised the Assassins haven't cottoned on to L-Space. They have a big library too..._

They settled back and ate, serving completed, and discussed the meeting-point of magic and Assassination, where each discipline could enhance and reinforce the other. Outside, the blizzard howled and roared as the daylight faded: the Assassins in their shelter began to light candles and lanterns, their flames flickering with the rise and fall of air pressure.

"And another problem. Everyone has some sort of magical ability. Although for most people it's latent and never develops very far. They might have a glimmering of it once or twice in a lifetime, a premonition, an intuition, a wish comes true, or something like that. But it's been estimated that for maybe five per cent, that's one person out of twenty, it goes deeper and further than that. Which is where witches and wizards might happen. Nobody knows how or why it switches on for that one boy or girl in twenty, but it usually does, round about puberty."

Ponder lowered his voice.

"Incidentally, the girl, miss Perkins?"

"She responded well to a mild sedative. So… you lit a bonfire for us. It aroused the interest of - creatures – from a different dimension."

"The Dungeon Dimensions. They're drawn to displays and discharges of magic. I knew because I'd used magic to help us all along and light a fire, they'd come calling. I was ready to meet them and shake a staff at them, as they're relatively powerless entities. They just _look_ frightening and disgusting."

"You didn't realise we had a girl who was sensitive to magic, professor. Once you realised what was going on you were able to clear them out of her mind quickly enough, and then we sedated her to take her to a deeper level of sleep where they couldn't follow." Alice nodded. "Lord Downey thinks there might be advantages to joint training. Johanna offered to prove his point by bringing you along. I have to say I think it's worked so far!"

"So far" Ponder agreed. Then he asked

"Where is Miss Perkins, by the way?"

_**She is with me.**_

They felt the voice as a cold winter wind, as biting cold seeping into the bone marrow.

"Oh, damn…"

"Then I must ask you to give her back, whoever you are!"

That was Alice Band, in her sternest schoolmistress voice.

_**I repeat. She is with me. She will come to no harm. **_

"I am responsible for her. You will return her to me, undamaged."

_**She was susceptible. She allowed me entry. Through her eyes and her mind I see that there are three adult women here. There are seventeen younger girls. There are eighteen juvenile males. **_

"And one Wizard" said Ponder Stibbons. He felt the unseen entity turn its attention to him.

_**And one wizard. One human with a slightly deeper knowledge of the hidden tides and currents of the world. One human from whom I have nothing to fear.**_

Ponder visualised, whilst being careful not to create or call into being. As an opening gambit he projected the picture of a fireball into the psychic space. He sensed the laughter of the Wintersmith.

_**Yes, Wizard. You could dissipate my being with a fireball if you so chose. But what do you do then? This is the deepest winter. This is my time. It is not my time to be diminished and to fade from the world. Your party of adventurers would be a mere eight or ten miles down the track to the city and in the open, when my substance resumes its form and its sentience. You would not even have the protection this ingenious shelter gives you. I would be irritated. You would all be dead.**_

There was a sudden ripping and tearing of the roof of the shelter. Ponder Stibbons found himself sprawling in deep snow, half-blinded by the flurries and suddenly a lot colder from the wind. He gripped his staff for dear life, pulled his cloak tightly about him, and tried to think how Mustrum Ridcully might win this magical duel. _No,_ he thought, _I've met Mistress Weatherwax. One of her pupils allegedly defeated the Wintersmith. Maybe this calls for witch-magic. _

The buffeting stopped. Ponder found his fingers closing around the staff as he saw three other figures had been pulled from the shelter. He recognised Alice, Johanna and one of the pupils.

_Miss Perkins. The magic-sensitive one. I'll have to ask for her to be tested when we get back to the City. She won't like it, but if the tests are positive, she'll have to put up with being a Witch who went to the Assassins' School for a couple of years. Somewhere like the QCYL would still take her. That witch Miss Tick seems to have an arrangement with the Headmistress. Then advanced training in Lancre. _

"Assuming we were inclined to give it to you, what do you want?" Ponder asked._ This won't do. I don't want to freeze to death out here._

The Wintersmith was in a human form now, that of a tall thin youth in his late teens, albeit one with frost-greyed hair and icicle-sharp features.

Ponder raised his staff high, vocalised a few syllables, and said "This is purely defensive."

_Now how is this one done? Oh yes. Draw the white light from the head_. _The red light from the heart. Allow them to be drawn up into the staff. And…._

A cone of rose-pink light radiated down from the tip of the staff. It illuminated a large circle in the snow with Ponder at its centre. He exhaled.

"Johanna, Miss Band, could you get Miss Perkins into the cone, please? And yourselves. It should be warmer inside. Thank you."

He allowed the shivering women into the little oasis of relative warmth he had created, and stood over them, feeling absurdly macho and protective.

"Very impressive, Wizard. I will allow you your little cone of warmth until such time as I choose to end it. But I want the girl. As a partner to dance with."

"You cannot have her, Wintersmith." Ponder said. He frowned at his own calm and resource. He was refusing an Elemental Spirit. Who was known to be capricious and could kill him in a heartbeat.

_Well, yes. But you're also a graduate research Wizard, you have to deal with the Faculty, you manage the HEM, and just for relief and relaxation purposes, you're dating an Assassin. You kissed a quiet life goodbye a long time ago._

Johanna had struggled to her feet and was at his left side. To his right, Alice held the young student Assassin protectively to her and had drawn her sword.

"Be reasonable, Wintersmith. You tried something like this before. It nearly brought about eternal Winter and the death of a continent. A human female cannot live with you in your world."

"What is that to me? I can rule in snow and ice and winter. All I need is a Queen. The rest will die. Just inconvenient pinpricks of heat and warmth in my world."

"Then you too will die, Wintersmith."

"I? Also?" the Wintersmith laughed, a derisive laugh bringing sleeting stones of hail which sizzled into stinging cold rain as they hit the cone of insulating pink light.

"Then you too will die, Wintersmith." Ponder repeated, with absolute certainty. "What do you know about one of the greatest magics of all?"

Ponder looked the Wintersmith right in his coal-black eyes, trying to dismiss the thought of childrens' snowmen with carrot noses and coal-sliver eyes. Then he spoke the word of power.

"_Entropy, _O Wintersmith. Entropy. The heat-death of the universe."

The Wintersmith shivered. Ponder had a mental vision of himself, driving a sledge propelled by two huge walruses, across a landscape of ice and snow under a dying red sun. _Where the Hell did that come from! _.he wondered. _Urlik? A Black Sword? The Silver Chalice? _

With his wizard-senses, he realised he was living in two universes simultaneously. **(5) **He dragged himself into the one that mattered.

"Entropy is a condition of thermodynamics. Thermodynamics stipulates that life is only possible where differences in temperature exist. Your intention is to reduce everything to absolute zero in temperature. Absolute winter. Yet thermodynamics insists that for you to live and breathe, your temperature should be more than absolute zero, even if only by fractions of a degree. The moment everything is at minus two hundred and seventy-three, no mental process are possible as no differentials or electrical potentials exist between brain cells. You, the last living thing, are dead. Entropy wins with everything the same temperature. Am I going too quickly for you? Would you like that again? You have no choice other than to enjoy your season and then hand over – gracefully – to the Summer Lady at the appointed time. So you must leave us our young lady."

The Wintersmith's face contorted in uncharacteristic doubt.

"I will take that chance. And the girl."

"How do you know she isn't promised to some other God?" Alice Band demanded. "You can get into trouble that way! I happen to know she wears the crocodile tooth of Offler."

_**In fact, there happens to be a God here even as we speak. One moment, please, while I manifest.**_

The newcomer took the form of a friendly-looking youth wearing short walking skis, and the multicolour costume of the reindeer-driving nomads from nearer the Hub. He shook hands with Ponder.

"Hullo!" he said. "I heard you call me earlier. Sorry I couldn't get here sooner. Foorgol, God of Avalanches."

"Ponder Stibbons. Wizard".

"Jolly decent of you to remember me. So, a favour for a favour. You want this Wintersmith chappie off your back?"

The God turned to face the elemental.

"Awfully sorry, old boy, but this Human prayed to me earlier tonight. So, in her own quiet way when she looked up at the size of cliff she's pitched her tents underneath, did Miss Band here from the Assassins' Guild. By the way, the daughter of Bishop Band of Quirm and favourite god-daughter of the high Priest, Hughnon Ridcully."

Alice made an ironic little curtsey.

"So mess with her, you mess with Io, as she's one of his. So that means I've got two believers here, and therefore certain rights are conferred?"

"God you may be, Foorgol, but I am more powerful!" the Wintersmith roared. "Without me there would be no snow for you to move!"

"I have to admit I couldn't do much here in July" Foorgol admitted, "But this is midwinter. And as a God, I still outrank you. So be a good elemental, will you, leave the girl alone – good grief, she's only thirteen, you'll get yourself a serious reputation ! – and trot off to the Hub, why don't you? Oh, and don't bother huffing and puffing. I saw Death in the distance, and that's where she's staying – in the distance. She's got no business here, I think you'll find. Oh, you're off. Good."

"Wait, Wintersmith" Johanna said. "I'm the one who met the Summer Lady. In return for your going end leaving us alone, you cen share thet memory."

She stepped forward and looked the Winter Sprite right in the eye.

"I give you permission to enter my mind end read thet one memory and none other. Perheps Lord Foorgol here will ect es witness to fair play?"

The God nodded, and allowed the Wintersmith to place a chilly finger to Johanna's forehead.

_Ah… hot, so hot. How do humans bear it? But… it was she. As she appears in your hot Rimwards country. I thank you for your gift. You will not be disturbed again…_

Thw Wintersmith erupted into a jet of steam and vapour as he absorbed Johanna's memory. The blizzard abruptly stopped and the howling wind slackened to nothing. Ponder turned off the magical field that had been supporting the humans. It had taken from him: his knees buckled

"Well done!" he said to Johanna. "I'd never have thought of that!"

"I had a feeling it might be too much for him to bear." she said. "Even sharing my memory of Home wes too much for a thing made of Winter!"

"It got rid of him, anyway". Foorgol said. "Look, love to stand here and chat, but things to do, avalanches to organise…"

"I'll perform a ritual for you in Small Gods" Alice promised him. "My father said all Gods are deserving of honour in their own seasons."

"Not _that_ small, bishop's daughter!" Foorgol reproved her. "I'll have you know I'm no one-season wonder. Next time you're in Klatch, ask about Habib, the God of collapsing sand-dunes. That's my summer job!"

He waved, and disappeared.

"Well, let's get under cover again!" Alice said exhaling loudly. "I've still got some tea and sugar, if you can still boil a kettle, Mr Stibbons!"

* * *

.**(1) Agnew's Agent Orange: **a spell devised in the old days of Mage Wars to defoliate large areas of forest believed to be hiding your enemy. The seventh level mage Spiral Agnew had proudly declared that this spell contained the maximum fire in the smallest sized ball.

**(2)** Some questions are hard to ask politely. Witness Teppic and Ptraci's agonising difficulties in _**Pyramids**_**,** over "how many people have you inhumed/congressed?" It should be easy to ask a handmaiden how many people she's, er, handled, or an Assassin how many people they have, er, annuled, but convention and etiquette makes the asking of the question near-impossible. Try it sometime. This explains why Alice Band is uncharacteristically reticent in asking Ponder. Schooled in Assassin convention, it would feel as personally intrusive as if she were inquiring how often he changed his underwear.

**(3)** The Bursar, when he remembers, is still trying to reclaim the coach-fare to and from Lancre back from the Palace, claiming the University party were on official State business. It is all apparently foundering on the issue of tickets that were unfortunately lost during a battle with Elves.

**(4) **It was true. In the days when promotion depended on creatively inhuming your superior, and enjoying the fruits of that promotion meant guarding against your ambitious juniors, the University was a frequent customer of the Assassins' Guild. Any seventh-level mage, so well guarded against magic that no conceivable spell could penetrate, might realise at too late a moment that he'd left guarding against utterly unmagical throwing knives, swords and poisons _**right**_ out of his thinking. But Assassins soon realised they only ever got one go at a Wizard, and the then Guild Master got used to receiving envelopes full of charred powder and a University compliments slip, the results of the usual reflex fireball.

Assassins who might otherwise have been usefully educated at the University - ie, those with a magical streak, or those who were genuinely double-graduates of both institutions - became, briefly, very, very, rich, until Lord Vetinari realised there were some very powerful people out there combining wizardry and an Assassins' Guild education. The new Patrician set about thinning their numbers while passing an edict against anyone training at both City institutions. This didn't stop borderline candidates and some very dangerous people emerging - it is thought the late Jonathon Teatime, a cradle Assassin, was also a natural-born Wizard who capitalised on his inherent magical ability to great personal effect. As Alice Band has elsewhere noted, a duty of teaching Assassins is to look out for emerging signs of magical ability, which normally surfaces at puberty. If discovered, by edict and arrangement, that student Assassin must, alas, leave the Guild so that their education may be taken over by the Wizards. This also applies to Thieves' Guild School students: Vetinari is also known to have Firm Views on the existence of Wizard/Thieves, ie, not in _my_ city.

**(5) **The other universe Ponder has connected with was a novel by Michael Moorcock, _**Phoenix in Obsidian**_, in which the Eternal Champion, Urlik, has to bring rebirth to a dying planet Earth. It is interesting to contemplate Ponder Stibbons as Discworld's version of the Eternal Champion… Moorcock, btw, is one of those Roundworld sci-fi authors who is satirised, sent up and generally piss-taken in the early Discworld books, which are a veritable I-Spy for mainstream SF/Fantasy references. Moorcock deals a lot with concepts of "entropy" and "the heat-death of the Universe".


	12. The return

**Another Hogswatch in Ankh-Morpork. More little glimpses into the lives of its people as they go about the business of the holiday… where a family gets together in December, there will be lawyers in January…**

Ponder runs a frostbite patient home and stays for breakfast at the AG guild – the Colonel and his lady perform an inspection and return for a court martial - the survivalists return home - Death is judged - Alice shuts up the noise from BW House - it is Hogswatch. Johanna and the Faculty?

* * *

With the Wintersmith dispersed and the danger past, Alice and Johanna set all hands to repairing the damage to the group's snow-shelter. The elemental spirit's capricious actions had torn great lengths of the roof away, which needed to be repaired quickly and efficiently. With this done, the group had a fairly comfortable night's rest, rising with the morning gloom to the still air and virgin white snowfield of a blizzard that has blown itself out, leaving everythimng white under what promises later to be a glorious blue sky.

Ponder and Johanna were awoken by gentle, cautious, shaking from the student assassins. It _had_ to be gentle and cautious: nobody wants to surprise somebody who habitually wears enough weaponry to inhume half a street, nor get them thinking they are being attacked in their sleep, nor that they are being woken too abruptly. Waking a sleeping Assassin safely is, in fact, currently under Guild consideration as a training module deserving extra credit on a student's record. But Heidi van Kruger managed it, alternating gentle shoulder shakes with reassuring words in Vondalaans.

"_Vuka jij…. Word wakker, jongvrou…_ Please, miss, Miss Band's esking for you both."

Johanna nodded, and prodded Ponder awake.

"We're needed, _lekker_" she said.

"OK" Ponder said, groggily. "What does _lekker _mean, by the way?"

"I believe it means she quite likes waking up next to you in the morning, Professor." Heidi said, helpfully, with a completely straight face.. "It's en endearment".

Johanna glared at her.

"Just because we're from the same country doesn't give you a licence to be familiar, _skabenga._" she said, trying to be stern. "Whet's the skinder?"

"Fool of a boy down there's pulled over with a stroeppy case of _vuitsvrot._ He's on his guava until somebody mekes a plen.." Heidi said, drily. It was informal, by Guild School standards: but Johanna and Heidi had known each other for a long time and had an understanding. They'd also been together at the Safari in the Park that summer and faced down dangerous animals at large in urban Ankh-Morpork.

"Isit now?" Johanna said, shaking her head. "Jislaik, and efter ell we teach them, too!"

"I almost understood some of that." Ponder remarked, as they made their way through students who were waking up, packing to leave, tidying the site and preparing hot drinks. Currently sandwiched between two Howondalandian exiles and having known Johanna for six months, he suspected they'd been doing it deliberately.

"Boy with a case of frostbite." she said. "Miss Band probebly wents him evacuated beck to the School for Igorina to look et."

"Broomstick job, then". Ponder said, brightly.

She smiled and squeezed his hand. They found Alice and Jocasta, who were making an emergency first-aid lesson out of the situation. Alice was explaining that "fortunately this was not a bad case of frostbite as we have caught it early. The black and dark red discolouration is telltale, as is the lack of sensation. Treatment consists of getting the injured person to a normally warm environment as soon as possible. If the course of the frostbite is impossible to reverse, the injured may lose toes and part of the foot."

The patient winced; Alice glared at him.

"But we've got an Igorina now at the Guild. You're lucky!" said Jocasta.

"Lucky for you _we've_ got Professor Stibbons!" Alice remarked. "In previous years cases of frostbite have caused us quite a few problems. We've had to carry them with us until we can make arrangements for them to be collected, which slowed progress a little. It wasn't fun for the sufferer, either. By air, you'll be home inside an hour and in a warm bed with Igorina worrying about your feet. But I'll _still_ want you to do this course again next year, as the only people I'm passing are the ones who get back to the Guild today on their own feet. You'll get some course credits, certainly, but you were overconfident enough to think it was just a little itching in your feet and you thought you could ride it out without looking and deal with it when we got home. _Bad_ move!"

As Alice had been speaking, she had been carefully bandaging up the student's afflicted foot, eventually winding a blanket around the foot and lower leg for additional warmth.

"OK" she said, satisfied. "Professor, you don't need me to tell you it's cold up there, so as fast as you can to the Guild? Mr Lampeter, you will hold on tight, you will follow any instructions the Professor gives you, and you _will_ prepare yourself for coming out here again, to repeat this exercise and to get it _right_ next time. Thank you."

After a quick hug from Johanna, Ponder got airborne as quickly as he could, rising high enough to get a fix on Ankh-Morpork against a cloudless winter blue sky. It wasn't difficult: the black smoky pall that was rising against the blue of the sky, over there. It looked like a disaster had happened. But it was only a city of a million people lighting a hundred thousand coal, wood, or peat fires for the coming day. That just _looked _like a disaster from this altitude.

"First flight?" he asked his passenger. The boy nodded. "It all looks different from up here. We should see the line of the Ankh directly in front of us… we're shortly going to pass over the suburbs of New Ankh, then the old city wall. That bend in the river we can just make out encompasses the Isle of Gods. You can see the Tower of Art over to the right, there – that would be my landmark if I was heading towards the University - and further to the right, the Tump Tower. See it? The rest is just a blur at the moment, but as we get nearer, I'm expecting to see the permanent marquee of the Fools' Guild showing up to the left. That's because it's red, white and yellow stripes – bright colours that show up from a long way away. Every building around it is black or grey. That's my landmark for the Assassins' Guild, of course, which is just next door. I'm going to touch down directly in the courtyard as near to the infirmary as I can get."

Ponder had by now flown enough evacuation missions for the Assassins' Guild to have worked out a procedure. With the casualty fully conscious and whose life was not in danger, but who was not able to walk, Ponder was taking the time and trouble to keep a conversation going, explaining at all times what he was doing and why.

"First flight, by the way?"

Ponder's passenger was alert and very interested in what was going on around him.

"It looks so _different_ from up here!"

"It will do. Like looking down on a small-scale model of the City. I hear there are modellers who do that sort of thing. Architects like to see models of their buildings as well."

"Assassins might, too." his passenger said, thoughtfully. "You know, for route-planning and things."

Ponder nodded: Johanna had said as much on one of their "just the two of us" flights, which had taken them close to, but not over, Ramkin Manor. He knew there was quite a price on Commander Vimes' head.

"Can anyone fly one of these?" the young Assassin asked.

Ponder shook his head.

"We've done a few basic experiments" he said, "And the answer is that only a born magic-user can fly. Jo - that is, Miss Smith-Rhodes - on her own couldn't fly the stick. But when we go up together, I can channel the magic to her and she can steer it where she wants to go. Even then I get the veto and I can over-ride her. You'll always need a wizard or a witch or a druid to fly you, I'm afraid. And druids are more used to flying great big rocks, to be honest."

They flew on over the sprawl of Ankh-Morpork.

"Starting the descent now" he said. "Your ears might pop."

Ponder raised his right arm, spoke a word of command, and a red fireball erupted from his fingers, exploding high in the sky above Filigree Street. This was a prearranged signal that alerted the Guild to an incoming casualty. Sucking slightly burnt fingers, he guided the broom to hover above the inner courtyard, where working parties of Guild employees were already beginning to clear a foot of snow. There was none of the slightly intimidating "State your business!" this time, as Igorina supervised a couple of duty Assassins in unfolding a stretcher and transferring the casualty to it. Ponder Stibbons sighed and stretched as the broomstick was liberated of the burden.

"Any word of mouth, Mr Wizard?" Igorina inquired.

"Yes. Miss Band _absolutely_ forbids you to amputate unless there's no other way around it."

"I can replathe that whole foot in _minuteth" _Igorina declared. "And better than the one he thtarted with, too! Alithe can be too squeamish!"

"Yes, but Miss Band appeared to think the crucial thing is having a matching pair of feet, left and right ones, that both fit the same shoe size" Ponder remarked, pleasantly.

Igorina sighed.

"What doeth she think I am - an Igor?"

She shook her head, and looked sympathetically at the boy on the stretcher.

"Let's get you to the infirmary and take a look at thothe _feet."_

Ponder, used to the wandering Brigadoon lisp of the modern Igor, grinned. A voice behind him said "Feeling better already, Mr Lampeter? Good, good. Consider yourself lucky the facility existed to fly you out. It would have been a long and uncomfortable time otherwise!"

Ponder Stibbons jumped slightly. Lord Downey offered his hand.

"This is the third one you've brought back, Professor Stibbons? Or the fourth. I have to say Miss Band and Miss Smith-Rhodes _certainly_ stretch the pupils to the limits, on their little excursions into the wild."

They shook hands. "Perhaps you might like to stay for breakfast, Professor? You can tell me how things are going out in the countryside. That was a nasty blizzard we had last night. I'm surprised you only brought back _one_ frostbite case!"

"I'd be delighted, sir" Ponder said. " But just one thing... I believe I really need a bath or a shower first. It might be thoughtless just to walk straight in. I've been wearing these clothes for five days straight now."

Downey saw his point immediately. He summoned a Guild servant.

"Take as long as you need, Professor. Your clothes will be returned to you very soon. No spells in the pockets, nothing that might explode or cause injury? Forgive me, but Topsy, the guild laundress, insists everyone check, as there have been a few regrettable accidents." (1)

Ponder, having retrieved a few useful tools, reclined back in the I'm-sure-this-wasn't-here-five-minutes-ago so wonderful hot water, as Guild servants whisked his clothes away for attention. _Civilisation... so nice... hot water, I love you, I swear I'll never take you for granted again..._

* * *

(1) The average Assassin, or even assassin school pupil, normally carries a lot of things in his or her clothes which can cause loss of ernings potential to an unwary launderer. Following complaints (2), Lord Downey put out memos and stern warnings to Assassins of all grades to ensure their clothing was dirty, but not lethal, before turning it over to Topsy's girls. It is more vital than in other trades for an Assassin to empty their pockets before putting their trousers in for a wash. Or in the case of the ladies, their bras. It isn't just underwiring in there, but a last-ditch Gigli saw and a flexible dagger contoured to fit.(3)

(2) Mrs Manger, the Launderers' Guild chief, had publicly threatened to put Downey through a mangle if his boys and girls didn't take more care with clothes sent to the laundry. She was supported by Commander Vimes, who saw an unparelleled oportunity to start nicking Assassins for criminal negligience, and failure to pay compensation to fingerless laundry staff.

(3) And if you think this is extreme, in the _ninjitsu_ tradition of Japan, female Assassins have taken advantage of a natural place to conceal a sheathed dagger, as a weapon of absolute last resort. This is likely to also be the case in Agatea. And Pretty Butterfly teaches Agatean Languages and Culture at the Guild School. (Refer to Roundworld expert on all things Samurai and Ninja, Stephen Turnbull.)


	13. Old Traditions

**Another Hogswatch in Ankh-Morpork. More little glimpses into the lives of its people as they go about the business of the holiday… **

Ponder could have happily stayed in the bath for ever, as after five days on the trail it represented a little glimpse of Heaven.

He laid in the blissful warmth, noting the little details, such as that the Assassin idea of a bath-tub toy wasn't so much the rubber duck floating on the surface, as the rubber pike carefully and lovingly weighted to float just beneath it. Noting how much detail had gone into reproducing the teeth **(1),** Ponder carefully set the rubber pike aside, speculating that these things must be there to teach or reinforce some lesson or other.

However, after perhaps thirty minutes, a Guild servant returned his newly cleaned and dried clothes to him, and passed on the message that Lord Downey would appreciate his company at breakfast in ten minutes' time, Professor.

"That was fast!" Ponder said, appreciatively.

"We have our ways, sir" said the Guild servant. "You will see the Hogswatch collection boxes for Guild staff on the way into Big School. "

Ponder swiftly dried and dressed, feeling the luxury of clean and dry clothing after five days of intensive roughing it. He paused and donned the special wizards' robe that Johanna had co-designed for him. It was an attempt to get around the usual high-visibility factor that was built into most wizards' attitude to their clothing. The more successful a wizard got, the more it was built into his genes that he should be visible from as long a distance away as possible, partly as a warning, partly as advance notice to start preparing a suitable twelve-course dinner to be ready by the time he arrived. This resulted in stylistically hideous confections of red, gold, yellow, et c, which stood out like a Hogswatch tree ornament on illicit drugs. Some wizards, such as the Dean, were so good at the high-visibility thing, that the suspicion had arisen that people on a different planet could point a telescope at the Disc and deduce the presence of wizards.**(2) **For the whole point of being a Wizard was to be _recognised_ as a Wizard.

As Assassins would point out, with courtesy, diffidence and well-chosen words, this is not what they would consider ideal in any Wizard who was retained to assist the Guild in the conduct of any of its legitimate activities. For Assassins move silently, prudently, quietly. and above all discreetly. The client should always be made aware who is taking the time and trouble to make a surprise visit on them – this is only good manners - but this is ideally done at the latest possible moment, ideally just as the annulment is being concluded and the receipt book removed from an inside pocket/ waterproof/ fireproof/ dragonproof/ acidproof pouch. On a hard approach to the target, or even on a training mission in the wild, taking along a twenty-five stone physically unfit and wheezing magic-user in a bright red robe trimmed with rare furs who complains about there being no after-dinner mints , is considered ill-advised behaviour.

But, as Johanna Smith-Rhodes noted, in a memo to other Assassins and to the Dark Council, there are fashions within wizardry. The most recent change in Wizard ethnology occurred where a single super-dominant male, impervious to attempts to depose him, arose from the contending pack and made its leadership his in perpetuity.

From her experience in watching colonies of intelligent social animals such as rats and meerkats, this disenfranchises and effectively castrates males lower down the pecking order, who discover they are now inhabiting a static social order with little or no chance of advancement or preferment. They therefore act like castrated males, and the territorial frustration takes itself out in aberrations such as petty squabbling excessive eating, causing the animals to balloon and bloat in size. It is also interesting that the super-dominant male, and those who have other consolations, are the ones who remain, weight-wise, within the boundaries of "normal", or even stay physically thin. Johanna identified several key Wizards as conforming to this theory, beginning with Arch-Chancellor Ridcully – "_large, but by no means fat_".

There was the Librarian: _Of ideal weight and fitness for a mature male orang-utan. He lacks the full jowls of the dominant male, but has his own secure place in the group. _

Professor Rincewind: _The runt of the litter might gain a perverse satisfaction from being the one at the bottom of the social heap. He would also be beneath the dignity for the rest to hit and punch for too long – just not worth it. I suspect he is happy in his place which confers a sort of security – every Top needs a Bottom, somebody to look down on._

Then she had added:-

_Younger wizards coming to "maturity" from the juvenile stages of the group (ie, graduating from the juvenile state oF "undergraduate" to the "mature" stage of Wizard) hold the key to the next transition within the University. _

_The lifestyle of the current dominant (Faculty) Wizard is expressly an unhealthy one, and the effects on the University budget of maintaining the infrastructure that supports it must be tremendous. It is interesting that the new generation of Wizard, ones largely currently outside the Faculty, and based on the High Energy Building and Thaumatological Park, remain in the eight –to-twelve stones (112 – 170 pound) weight range. This is broadly normal for a human male in his twenties or thirties, even though many still live at the University and can if they wish take advantage of the system which allows for a full meal every two hours of the day and night. __**Wizards do not have to become morbidly obese.**_ _I believe that those with a consuming and genuine scientific interest, such as Professor Stibbons, will eat normally and intelligently and refrain from extreme weight gain. As the older generation of mutually suspicious and uncooperative Wizards dies off prematurely, younger fitter men – those who have grown up in a spirit of co-operation in the HEM and TP - will take over, and the focus of the University will change again. In this case, I see great employee redundancies in the University catering staff, (and a great chance for the Guild to recruit some of the best cooks and chefs in the City!). Monies saved on catering, in such a new regime, will be used to further research. Professor Stibbons is certainly a man to watch, and is sympathetic to the idea of close co-operation between the Guild and the University where our interests converge__** (3).**_

Having noted that Ponder's preferred wizarding robe was a dull bleached-out field grey sort of colour, with only minimal hood trim in cheap fur, Johanna had gone to the City's leading suppliers in wizard's robes with his measurements and a rough idea or two. Mr Eden and Mr Scalbiesfield** (4)** had raised and eyebrow, said "Original!" but made it up for her. In the optimistic and slightly giddy spirit of every woman who's ever tried to change a boyfriend's dress sense, she had presented it to him later. In the spirit of every man who's new enough to all this to treat it as a flattering novelty, Ponder had obliged and put it on.

The New Robe was double-sided: his habitual grey-green on one side, but pure snow-white on the other, broken by a series of chipped and splintered pattern in ice-blue, pale grey and a very slight hint of green. Muted outline magical symbols appeared, in ghostly outline, in various strategic places.

Ponder had raised an eyebrow. Johanna had said "It's to help you blend in more. You know, when you come out with us on the winter survivel cless. The most forwerd thinking in the Guild is coming beck towards camouflage colours. Miss Lensbury's clesses in the Ert Depertment were esked to devise camoflege patterns. Thet one is celled Erctic Combet Number One."** (5)**

Even though the rest of the Faculty had not been encouraging, Ponder had to admit that the Arctic Combat Wizards' Robe had certainly worked – the student Assassins he had been working with had all been wearing similar variations on a theme of regular Assassin clothing, as had their teachers. He pulled the robe on, appreciating its cleanliness and warmth, and went to find Breakfast. He realised he had an appetite that would leave the Dean lagging far behind. Good.

"Just walk in, sir" the Guild porter advised him. "Your seat will be on High Table with Lord Downey and his other guests". The Great Hall had been set out for all the staff and pupils who remained in the Guild over the holidays. Even so, there was a definitive end-of-term feel to it, as if a lot of people were missing and things were just ticking over until the new academic term started. High Table, set cross-wise to all the rest on a higher dais, was perhaps two thirds empty and only about half a dozen people were breakfasting there.

Downey himself stood up to receive Ponder, and he was guided to a seat where he could make his choices from tureens that were passing up and down the table. Having lived for nearly a week on dried soup, biltong and mixed trail ration (he blessed Johanna for insisting he made pack room for a couple of pounds of mixed nuts and dried fruits), he could not remember ever having been hungrier. His nose assailed by the mixed smells of bacon, sausage, black pudding, eggs, tomatoes, mushrooms and all the other necessary components of a decent breakfast, he piled his plate with a will, and set to, inadvertently reinforcing a few deeply-held Assassin prejudices about wizards at mealtimes.

There was a delicious throaty laugh from nearby.

"Johanna has kept you busy on a small portion, I perceive!"

He looked over: yes, it was Jo's friend, the predatory-looking Quirmian one. He smiled pleasantly at her, wondering why people had been diffidently asking _"did you sleep well last night, Madame Deux Épées?" _as if there was a lot more they wanted to add to that, but couldn't think how to approach the subject. Ponder wondered why he was picking up _embarrassment_ and _exasperation_ in the air, which the Quirmian lady and her husband seemed blissfully unaware of. Certainly, occasionally one school pupil out in the hall might nudge another, discreetly point, and stare. Which led the frightening Miss Sanderson-Reeves, sitting out there with the pupils, to bark something like _Mr Woodlands-Crumpsall!_ _Face your front, boy! w_henever she noticed.

"You know how it is, madame," he said. "Johanna believes the important things to carry are weapons and survival equipment. Food takes a poor third place afterwards. After five days, it is possible to feel somewhat famished."

"But you are _un mage_, monsieur" said the soldier with the heavy-lidded eyes, sitting next to her. "Surely you may call things into being, such as food?"

"It isn't _quite _as easy as that, sir." Ponder said, trying not to sound like one who has already answered the question a thousand times before. "To begin with, you can't make something out of nothing – there is a conservation principle at work here. And you can't just convert a pound of snow into a pound of bread. Given that water is a relatively simple chemical compound, and the long-chain gluten starch carbohydrate of bread_ isn't, _then it becomes a case of perhaps ten pounds of snow to be stripped down to its constituent atoms and rebuilt as a pound of bread. Which takes time and energy. And then, of course, you have a pound of perfectly good bread which will do all you want bread to be. But it remembers being ten pounds of frozen water and could turn back at any point. Which means the good hot slice of buttered toast you _remember_ eating…" He left the sentence unfinished. But Emmanuelle and Maurice got the point.

"And that if you are lucky, Monsieur le Mage, and not, as rumour tells us, that substance to which fairy gold reverts in the morning".

Ponder nodded. "Nobody knows why fairy gold does that in the morning." he said. "Research indicates that it has to do with the rather basic sense of humour of the Elves."

He touched metal: at an Assassin dining table, there was no shortage of it.

"Ah yes. Elves. Not a species we've had too many dealings with. Although Alice Band once inhumed a couple." Downey said, speculatively.

The bearded and scarred Klatchian at the table turned, regarded Ponder, and grinned. "Not only Elves" he pronounced. "_Djinns _too. What they create, when you think they are answering your three wishes, reverts to the offal of a diseased camel after the third wish is done".

There was general laughter.

"And you would not wish to light a campfire with it, either!"

Ponder, his first hunger over, allowed his pace to slow a little. He addressed Downey.

"Sir, we had a little local difficulty with that blizzard last night. Supernatural entities were involved."

He told the story of their involvement with the Wintersmith and the intervention of the god Foorgol.

"Johanna told me about the Teatime Prize, sir." He concluded, being careful to pronounce the name _tey-ah-tiy-ma_, in the approved way. "I believe it's named for an Assassin who specialised in difficult missions. On his last contract, I believe he called for specialised aid both from the University and from the Thieves' Guild to deal with specialised aspects of the mission?" (He very carefully left out that he'd had to investigate the case of the missing Wizard, Sideney, personally, at Ridcully's personal demand.)

"Yes. There's a long tradition of the various Guilds and Trades forming loose expeditionary parties when a situation calls for it, or a situation poses operational problems no one group can tackle on its own." Downey agreed. "It used to be exploratory, getting into the dungeons and the abandoned towers and making them safe, or at least empty. Teatime was just revisiting a vanished tradition. Ah, the dungeons. And the things you found in them. Goblins. Trolls. Dragons, even." Downey's eyes showed he had passed into a brief reverie.

Emmanuelle smiled a deep smile.

"She doesn't like to say it and she gets most annoyed if people remind her of it, but our friend Johanna has a relative in that line of business".

Ponder raised an eyebrow.

"She has a cousin, Howondaland Smith **(6)**, who billed himself as ze Balgrog-Hunter. Originally he was Howondaland Smith-Rhodes, but ze family made him drop the "Rhodes". Johanna does not like to be reminded. _C'est le mouton noir, ne c'est pas?"_

Every family has a black sheep, certainly, thought Ponder. He returned to the point.

"Sir, I understand the Teatime Prize is conferred for the most creative inhumation of a non-human entity. I saw how Johanna got the Wintersmith to dissipate himself. She had a memory of seeing the Summer Lady in the deep hot desert and invited the Wintersmith to take that memory for his own. The Wintersmith craves the Summer Lady but may only see and touch her fleetingly, twice a year. But he was so greedy for a sight of the Lady that he took somebody else's sighting, one that happened in a desert, and in reliving it, he melted himself. Oh, he'll be back – he's an elemental spirit. I just think Johanna was a genius for thinking of that one".

Downey nodded. "I'll certainly bear that in mind, Professor. Please can you tell us now what the general state of morale is like out there?"

"Now everyone knows they're on the way home, sir, it couldn't be higher!"

Ponder discussed the five days in the wild as he'd seen them, spoke about all they'd seen and done, the high points and the lows, the leadership exerted by the three staff members and the occasional remarkable or outstanding act carried out by a pupil.

He ventured his opinion that the student who had inadvertently attracted the Wintersmith, Miss Perkins, might be magically gifted and need formal testing for magical ability.

"Scorpion House" noted Emmanuelle. "One of Lady T'Malia's."

"I'll discuss this when the students and their tutors return." Downey said. "Professor, you will be returning to the party to guide them in?"

"Yes, sir." Ponder said, through a mouthful of bacon-and-egg sandwich. He swallowed. "We have a pre-arranged meeting point along the Hubwards road. After that it's just a road march down to the Hubwards Gate, the Broadway and then Filigree Street."

"Oh, I think we can do better than that" Downey said. "In the meantime, Professor, please can you take a morale-boosting gift back to everyone on the road?"

Which was how, a little later, Ponder found himself circling in the air, searching for the Guild School party, and nursing a backpack containing three boxes of Weinrich and Boetcher finest chocolate assortment (for the teachers) and forty bars of Higgs and Meakin Fruit and Nut Chocolate (one each for the pupils and several left over. One of the spares had Ponder's thaumic signature on it..).

* * *

(1) There is also a subtly modelled clump of yellow feathers stuck between the teeth of the bathtime rubber pike, to act as an intellectual stimulant to Assassins of a thoughtful and observant disposition.

(2) A prudent neighbouring civilization had in fact perfected replicator technology for this reason, so that if the Fat Ones ever got space-travelling capacity, they could be placated by machines that could call a reliable twelve-course dinner into being from the very fabric of matter itself – without it turning into the raw material of faerie gold by morning. .

(3) Some amusing but irreverent comments were pencilled in the margin at this point in various hands. "_Keep watching him, Johanna!" _and _"close-cooperation between University and Guild indeed, young lady!" _were quite mild.

(4) Eden and Scalbiesfield's Robes, Gowns and Clerical Attire since AM 1067! Just graduating from UU or the Assassins' Guild School and want to look smart at Convocation? You're a new Barrister just about to step into court for the first time? See us! We dress Wizards, Lawyers, Assassins, Thieves, Fools and Clowns!"

(Based on the England, Roundworld, supplier of academic robes to university graduates, _**Ede and Ravenscroft.**_)

(5) OK, so Ponder's girlfriend is uprating his sense of style… getting him out of a parka and into Arctic Combats…

(6) Howondaland Smith the Balgrog-Hunter appears in _**Guards! Guards! **_As one of the heroes summoned by Vetinari to rid the kingdom of a noble dragon, he is less than complimentary about the rate of pay on offer.


	14. I'll finish this if it kills me

**Another Hogswatch in Ankh-Morpork. More little glimpses into the lives of its people as they go about the business of the holiday… **_the Colonel and his lady perform an inspection and return for a court martial - the survivalists return home - Death is judged - Alice shuts up the noise from BW House - it is Hogswatch. Johanna and the Faculty? _

By the light of two candles, which he judged was the most practicable sufficiency for early morning or twilight work, Lord Vetinari absorbed himself in the research report in front of him. Emanating originally from the Guild of Artificers, it had been circulated for comment via the Guild of Economists, Unseen University, Commander Vimes of the Watch, and by the look of it, Ronnie Soak the milkman, lest his views on the topic be neglected.

Vetinari also found it to be a droll indictment of human nature that each user-group had attempted to steer the direction of the discourse in a direction that justified funds being allocated towards their special interest. Even the title of the report had been pencilled through and corrected as it passed between commentators.

AIR TRAVEL AND TRANSPORTATION – AN EXCITING OPPORTUNITY (Guild of Artificers) had been altered to WHITE ELEPHANT OF AIR TRANSPORT:- _massive investment needed in research and development – Ankh-Morpork may never see a return on investment _(Guild of Economists).

This had become THE AIR: SECURITY BLIND SPOT. _We need to control our city's airspace – Klatchians already vastly ahead of us. The law goes all the way _**up**_ as well_! (Vimes)

Vetinari smiled to himself. The more jumbled other peoples' thoughts were, the better. And a report that read as if a very large horse had been chained to each of an issue's arms and legs and instructed to pull in opposite directions was something he was all in favour with. It meant that while the City's authorities were bickering and squabbling among themselves, they were, in one way or another, revealing what they _really_ thought, the key factors that always helped the Patrician come to a decision.

Originally, the flying carpet was an amusing magical device whose origins are as far lost in the ever-shifting sands of time.

"One Klatchian folk-legend attributes its origin to a long-ago Seriph, a book of levitation spells, and a hookah, primed with the best available hashish:-

"_The inevitable happened, and the Seriph grew situationally confused. Taking another ill-advised drag on the hookah and befuddling his thoughts, he succeeded in levitating the carpet rather than himself. As he and the hookah were upon the carpet at the same time, however, the net lifting effect covered a far larger area somewhat more effectively. For the same voice that had intoned the levitation spell had also enchanted the hookah smoke. Know, o Sultan, that the breath of life which animates words of magic may be also magic unto the smoke of the hookah. This inevitably permeates the fabric of the carpet with the essence of a lifting spell…_

(From _**The Book of a Thousande and One Stories A Boye May Listen To At Bedtymme**_, by the Sultana Begum Marmalheyde)**(1)."**

"The flying carpet has traditionally been used as a fast conveyance of convenience by Klatchian rulers, senior military officers, and the Imperial Messenger Service, for ease of communication and transmission of information. At most, two or three man carpets have been used for these purposes and the technomancy has remained static for many years. These small fast runabouts remain the sole prerogative of nobility, senior religious clerics and wizards, and are still to be seen in transit between Klatchian embassies the disc over, conveying diplomatic secrets and updates in a way wholly secure save in all-out war. (Your Lordship is reminded of the surge in carpet flights over Ankh-Morpork in the run-up to the Leshp Incident**(2)**).

"Over the last thirty or forty years however, beginning from small, almost imperceptible origins, Klatchian technomancers and entrepreneurs have been quietly, inobtrusively, experimenting and developing ideas. As so often, the originator of the idea was one of those persons of remarkable mind-set, encountered in all places and times on the Disc, the tribe of _Dibblers, _one of whose distinguishing characteristics may be this: a Dibbler will have a grand idea. It will naturally be fundamentally flawed, and utterly unworkable, or even patently dangerous in the form in which the Dibbler had it. Witness, for instance, _Moving Pictures With A Thousande Elephants, Music with Rocks In, _or the original conception of _Dibbler's Howondalandian Safari Park – _which was so dangerous that it took the combined skills of the City Watch and Assassins' Guild to contain, but which proved to contain the germ of the idea for establishing a City Zoo. **(3)** It simply took a far more capable and professionally qualified person than a Dibbler to refine the idea and make it work. But Dibblers have grand ideas, potentially world-changing ones, or no ideas at all. It's the sorrow of the Dibblers, however, that their ideas just do not work.

"Such a one, possibly a relative of the celebrated Omnian entrepreneur Cut-Me-Own-Hand-Off Djibbla, first had the idea of making the carpet far larger and charging passengers for a set flight to a location of choice. He chose to go back to first principles, and, using the services of Cooper the Insane, a wizard struck off by Unseen University for unseemly negligience in his experimentation and careless use of magic, set about enchanting a carpet.

"The carpet he chose was that which had been laid on the spiral staircase of a minaret, on the oddly logical grounds that being a stair carpet, most of it already had the basic idea of being up in the air anyway. It just needed to be persuaded to stay there and, you know, move around a bit. He seated his first batch of passengers at intervals on the carpeted staircase, had his wizard speak the spells of propulsion... and the whole carpet shot into the air like a quarrel from a crossbow, the minaret acting as the barrel in a one-shot crossbow, propelling a very large projectile along a spirally grooved cylinder very quickly indeed. Observers at ground level considered the experiment to be very spectacular, in a doomed sort of way, as the inspiral carpet shot to a height of ten thousand feet, having shed most of its passengers owing to the action of centrifugal force. Among other things, Lord Vetinari was regrettably sent a misleading intelligence report from Ankh-Morpork's man on the spot, concluding that commercial carpet flights would never work. This was a correct observation based on the evidence of the day, but it did not take into account that Klatch is a large place where further research could take place far away from the watchful eyes of other nations.

"The network of forts administered by the Klatchian Foreign Legion became the next proving-ground, as more careful wizards than Cooper the Insane performed research and added refinements to the idea. Each Legion fort took one or two large carpets on the strength, plus a duty wizard, which were capable of carrying up to twelve fully armed Legionnaires on patrol. One purpose of the carpet issue to each base was so that warning could be sent to the next forts along concerning any D'Reg or Hersheban attack. However, the D'Reg and the Hershebans had carpets of their own which were used to counter and neutralise Legion air capacity. As so often happens, amendments and improvements, forced by these first instances of air fighting, served to improve the technology almost beyond recognition. Very soon, large carpets had been woven and enchanted that could each carry up to seventy people. While these were expensive and unweildy in terms of magic consumed, their value as troop-transports was seen at an early stage. In fact, had Prince Cadram's plan for an attack on Ankh-Morpork been allowed to succeed, these hitherto secret designs would have been used to convey elite troops for a shock assault on strategic city locations, such as the Patrician's Palace, the Times, and the more important gates and bridges.

"But with the Leshp Emergency ending the way it did, and no obvious major war in sight, the Klatchians now had a fleet of variably large carpets and no apparent purpose to them. Djibbla's idea was revived, and the first steps were taken to establish paid commercial flights, at first within the Klatchian hegemony and later outside it. But, and the Seriph wished this understood by all, with all possible care and safeguards built into the process". (Extract from _**History and Origins of the Flying Carpet**_, a monogram by Dr. J.B. B Betteridge of the Guild of Historians).

"We now have the Royal-House-sponsored company United Klatchian Emirates, monopolising the commercial markets, paid for by generous and far-sighted investment by Prince Khufurah and other Emirs and Caliphs. And all our economic models suggest their investment is paying off handsomely". (Extract from _**Economic Ramifications of Air Travel**_, by the Ankh-Morpork Guild of Economists).

Vetinari sighed. His eyes fell on a different part of the report.

_**How safe is it? - security implications of air travel and magically assisted flight.**_ Co-written by a committee including Commander Vimes, his own Dark Clerks, Mage Intelligence Five and Six at the university, and representatives of the Fools' and Assassins' Guilds.

The Assassins' Guild noted how simple it would be for a determined and well-armed individual, or group, to board a flight posing as normal travellers and then to take it over, forcing the crew to fly to a location other than the predetermined destination.....(" _or for the purposes of stealing any valuable airfrieght_" had been added by a Thieves' Guild representative).

Commmander Vimes pointed to a recent incident where a student Assassin of Klatchian origin had been authorised by Miss Band to make an aerial recce of Ramkin Manor on her personal flying carpet.** (5)** Fortunately, having then increased Air Police strength from one to three officers, this threat had been dealt with fairly easily and Ramkin Manor declared a restricted zone to air travel. But, Vimes' nasty little mind was telling him, what if the next intruder from the air had a couple of barrels of Agatean Fireclay on board, whose fuses could be lit, and the barrels rolled off the edge of the carpet, over his living room - or perhaps even over the Patrician's palace? His explosives advisor **(6)** assured him such things were more than possible in her experience, and had even advised Vimes to beware of religious fanatics willing to die for their God by crashing a captured carpet, full of newly loaded raw magic and maybe a more mundane exothermic charge **(7)**, into a prominent city building - such as Ramkin Manor, or the Palace, or even a symbolic target such as the Tump Tower or the tower of Art?

Vimes' EO had also pointed out that such an attack on the Assassins' Guild buildings at the right time could take out 80% of graduate and student Assassins in the Guild, leaving the city's subtler defences virtually destroyed and open to other bodies from other nations that lack our loyalty to Ankh-Morpork. _"We may need airborne Assassins"_

Vetinari thought about this for an instant, and pencilled "no" in the margin. He added I_ may be persuaded that an expanded Air Police under the direction of the Commander of the Watch might act as a safeguard against any threat from the air. If nothing else, expanded use of the third dimension will necessarily entail a modicom of monitoring. And Corporal Swires is, in his way, one of life's natural-born sergeants who should be given his opportunity to shine with a third stripe in an expanded role. _

He then turned his attention to other questions.

"Can _we_ make it work?" was first. The Guild of Artificiers wholeheartedly said "yes" in large letters, while in very small ones were acknowledging that it would need a whole lot of investment capital for research, despite what those gloomy buggers in the Economists' Guild might say. Using **exactly **the same arguments, the Guild of Economists were just as strongly warning against it, pointing out that Artificers were unworldly people who would pour any amount of investment money down the drain without it ever showing a return.

Vetinari smiled, briefly. He turned to _**What are the hazards of flight? , **_which he noted had been contributed by Professor Stibbons of Unseen University. This at least covered less spectacular, but to Vetinari's mind somewhat more likely, proplems with manned flight. Stibbons had pointed to the possibility of a magical accident, or an unpredictable hazard, sucking all the raw magic out of the air for a large radius about itself so as to sustain its own existance. Should this happen in the vicinity of commercial air flights powered by magic, air vehicles of all kinds (save the birds and other living creatures flown by the Watch) would just fall out of the sky, with consequent mass loss of life and public hysteria. Stibbons quoted as an example the last breakthrough into our world by the Dungeon dimensions, during our mass flirtation with the Clicks.

* * *

The Colonel, turned out in his most immaculate dress uniform, walked along the ranks of the Legionnaires, flanked on one side by the young, nervous _sous-lieutenant, _and on the other by his wife. Nobody spoke. Periodically the Colonel nodded. Just once he tapped an errant soldier on the arm to point out a speck of dirt. Emmanuelle, wanting to giggle at the sheer military pomposity of it, tried winking at several soldiers. The bold ones, taking care that the Colonel had passed, winked back. She grinned.

"_Eh bien_" the Colonel said, at length. "Just three little imperfections, all of which I shall pass over with leniency, as it is after all Hogswatchnight, _la nuit de Pere Porcher_. But I knew you could do it, mes braves. You are legionaires. _You_ knew you could do it. And I am pleased with you. Now fall out and enjoy a drink at my expense!"

As the men fell out, he shook hands with the young lieutenant, who, blushing under Emmanuelle's frank gaze, said "there is one other thing, sir. A recaptured deserter was handed to us yesterday. A court-martial has been convened but requires officers to form its tribunal."

"Of course. I shall attend."

"Two o'clock this afternoon, mon colonel."

* * *

After some uncertain circling, Ponder detected movement below him. He glimpsed a flash of black. He knew Alice, Jocasta and Johanna had evolved an exercise with the young Assassins on the march, where if he was away from the group and flying back, lookouts would watch for him. Alice wanted the students to be aware of the possibility of being spotted from the air if they were out on a real mission, and to guard against it by going to cover promptly if they suspected a broomstick, flying carpet or other device was up there with a pilot who was watching for them. They were getting good at it, and Ponder was raising his game by seeking to approach the party from unexpected heights and directions.

Now he knew the students were down there - he had just glimpsed a black-clad form who for whatever reason had had their camoflage overtunic dislodged - he could play a sneaky trick of his own.

He reached around for the sack of chocolate items that Lord Downey had insisted he take back as a morale-booster. There were women down there who had gone without chocolate for over four days now. Johanna, the professional survivalist, had absolutely insisted on only the smallest chocolate bar, and one only, carried as an absolute last resort iron ration. Bonus credits would be awarded if it could be brought back uneaten at the end of the exercise.

_This is going to be a dirty, dirty, trick_, Ponder thought. _But if they won't break cover for this, they are in fact superhuman. _

Hovering the broomstick, he tied coloured silk scarves - all wizards carry them up their sleeves, there's an ancient University law - to several of the chocolate bars. In a low slow pass over the suspected hiding area, he dropped them at intervals, in slow deliberate movements. He zoomed, banked, and returned. Yes. He'd got them. Alice Band herself and two students.

Alice glared at him.

"Look, it's _chocolate_, OK?" she said.

"Lord Downey's instructions" he said. "One bar per pupil. Members of staff get...." and he brought out the Weinrich and Boetcher.

"oooh, _Ponder!" _Johanna breathed, half-sigh, half growl, her eyes covetuously narrowing, like a lioness spotting a gazelle from a hundred yards away. He remembered what the dwarf Casanunder had said - expensive chocolates get you more than halfway there - and smiled happily.

"Well, we can't go against the Master's wishes" Alice said, thoughtfully. "Form an orderly line, one bar per person!"

And after the chocolate was distributed, they set off again.

Not for very long: two miles and a bend in the road brought them to within sight of Ankh-Morpork, seven or eight miles distant. A low sighing groan of relief went up from the student body. But who knows, perhaps it was more for the Guild coaches that were waiting for them. Lord Downey came accross to speak to Alice. She agreed, keeping a diplomatically unreadable face. Then Downey spoke a few words about this having been the worst weather in many years for the winter survival course and adventure school. Four of you had to return with cold-related illnesses or frostbite. The blizzards over the past few days, and the fact Professor Stibbons advised me you had a bad time dealing with gods and elementals last night. I'm very, very proud of you all and you have conducted yourselves in the best spirit of the Guild. Miss Band has agreed with me that in the circumstances you have all passed this course.... thank you! - and you may return to the Guild in a degree of comfort to participate in our Hogswatch celebrations.

"Six to a coach!" Alice called. "Some of you will have to ride on top..."

"We'll go by air, Miss Band" Johanna called. Alice nodded. Some students giggled.

"And the moment we returrn, all issued kit will be accounted for and stored away! Then baths, clean clothes, and perhaps a light lunch."_A bath, clean underwear and bed for me, thought Alice. That damn wizard of Johanna's is looking a damn sight cleaner and better turned out for a visit to the Guild... unfair, Alice, he's been invaluable this week. _

But, she thought, from atop a moving coach, watching the broomstick keeping station in the sky on a parellel track, it's over for another year. Perhaps two more short winter classes in the wilds before February's end, and then it's time to give the first years a gentle under-canvas introduction to the great outdoors in spring. I'm not a sadist, but the looks of some of our more refined students when they realise they have to skin, gut and cook a rabbit for themselves, or go hungry...

* * *

"_J'accuse!"_ Sergeant-major Cotton thundered, pointing an accusing finger, as some traditions must be upheld.

"Jack who?" the Ambassador wondered. Corporal Dry-Clean Only coughed, diffidently.

"Jack Hughes, your excellencyness. Llamedosian. Corporal in the Third Battalion. He's stationed on the Lower Sand Sea now, up against the Nudians."

Emmanuelle, who had naturally been invited to stay for the court-martial, shifted with embarrassment, but forced herself to say nothing. She exchanged a mutually held "_**Tccchhh!" **_noise and a rolled eye with the strange girl, the Sto Helit woman, who seemed one of the more sensible people in this farce of a farce. Maurice, her husband, turned to the other tribunal members, and exchanged looks with the legion Lieutenant and the UKE carpet-pilot, who, as honourable officers, had been asked to form a troika and deal judgement on this most strange Nidle fellow. Emmanuelle, who in her time had consigned twelve men and one Troll to their respective afterlives in exchange for money**(8)**, had a gut feeling that Nidle was more than he seemed. After all, she'd logically brushed shoulders with him thirteen times on other people's accounts, and another two or three for near misses of her own. It was strange to see him unveiled, and to wonder if she was the only person who saw him so. But no, the strange Sto Helit girl seemed to have some family connection, and she had been amused that one of the carpet-line flight wizards had taken one glance into the big reception room where the trial was being held, had screamed, and had run a long way away... and then there was...

Mr Slant coughed, drily.

"Your excellency, mon caporal. I believe you labour under a slight delusion. Monsieur le sous-officiere has in fact used the traditional opening words of the prosecution in a Quirmian military trial. Opening with the phrase "_J'accuse!" _and indicating the defendent has been standard practice ever since the trial, for treason, of the notorious Captain Doofuss **(9) **over a century ago."

"What, Jack Hughes? Hughes the Booze in Third Batallion?"

"No, no. the first person declarative singular tense of the verb _accuser_, to accuse, to lay fault or blame or guilt upon. " Slant said, slightly more quickly than it needed. Emmanuelle nodded, approvingly.

_**"I accuse!" **_

**_"I accuse_**!" he suddenly thundered. "This is no small thing, as the indictment against the defendant is a grave crime in military law that commonly carries the most extreme sanction, perhaps, even, death."

His eyes flickered to meet Susan StoHelit's, just for a moment.

"It deserves a harsh, peremptory, accusative, two syllables leaving no place for mitigation, moderation or softening of a necessarily harsh sentence. That is why we must assess the evidence rigorously and methodically and reach a verdict which best reflects the action and the circumstances."

The Klatchian Legal Attache, a man who life had posted here just in time for him to come up against Mr Slant in court, had been appointed to the prosecution. Mustapha Al-ybi was a fairly recent graduate of the law school at Al-Gebra University, albeit a starred first and a high-flyer. Even so, the reputation of Mr Slant reaches far and wide. Wherever there is a law school the name of Slant is known. Knowing this, Slant was happy to sit down and allow the prosecution to present its case.

This was simple and straightforward.

On this date several years previously, the prisoner turned up from apparently nowhere in the depths of the Klatchian desert, knocked on the door of Fort _Er...I'll remember in a minute, got it written down somewhere..., _officially known as Fort Zindernaif, and asked to enlist in the Legion. Sergeant-Major Cotton, then just Corporal Cotton, had processed the new recruit, explained to him his rights and those responsibilities consequent on his enlisting, issued a uniform and a bunk, and set about training the new...man. Any new recruit in the Legion has the right to a change of name, even though his original name will almost cetainly be forgotten. This new recruit was very soon known as Beau Nidle, and, to be frank, was not a model soldier, incurring disciplinary procedures almost from day one.

He was released from arrest to assist in defending the fort from an attack by the D'Regs .....(at this point Barrister Al-Ybi's voice was heard to falter, as if he wasn't quite beleiving what he read upon the page). On successful defence of the fort and having assisted in the necessary and humanitarian work of burying bodies, Private Nidle, B., was seen leaving the fort in defiance of military law and convention, refusing all order to return. According to military law, at midnight plus one minute he was posted as AWOL. At one minute past midnight on the seventh day following his abscondment, his status officially became that of deserter.

"The only questions to ask, therefore, are these. I call Sergeant-Major Cotton to the stand."

Cotton stomped forward, crashed to attention and threw up a textbook salute. There was a lengthy pause while the duty librarian rolled a double-sided trolley of religious texts forward, for Cotton to select one he could take an oath upon.

"Got a good offer on Omnian texts this week, offendi" the Embassy librarian said, hopefully. "How about "_The selected and most vengeful testimonies of St Bobby_." No? Ah, good choice, offendi, good choice, _I don't mind if you lot all end up blind and eating through a straw, I am Offler thy God and I've still got both eyes and all my teeth, thanks. "_

Cotton raised the book and kissed it, in the Quirmian manner, before taking his oath.

"There are two questions I will ask you, Sergeant-Major" Al-Ybi began. "Firstly, is this the man you enrolled into La Legion, the man you knew as Tirailleur Beau Nidle?"

Cotton followed where Prosection's arm was indicating.

"I have no doubts at all, sir" he said. "Very few people are six foot seven inches tall." He paused, and looked around at native-born Quirmians such as Emmanuelle and her husband, frowning as they tried to translate the height into something more familiar to them.

"That is, a centimetre or two shy of two metres. A tall man" Al-Ybi translated, seeing the difficulty.

"He stands out in a crowd, you might say, sir."

_And herein lies the difficulty_, thought Slant, biding his time.

"And my second question. You have heard the account of Tirailleur Nidle's service with La Legion. Do you regard it as correct and comprehensive?"

"I do, sir. This is without doubt the Legion deserter known as Nidle, B. "

Al-Ybi, with a doubtful look at Slant, nodded to the tribunal.

"Your excellency, members of the tribunal. I beleive I have established both guilt and the identity of the accused. No further questions."

He sat down.

Colonel Maurice Lapoignard nodded acknowledgement.

"And the defence? Monsieur Slant, if you will."

Slant stood up.

"Your excellency, members of the tribunal. I beleive, as the prosecution has so rightly indicated, that the key witness here is monsieur le sous-officiere. Therefore I have several questions for him.

**_THE COURT-MARTIAL OF DEATH:- TO BE CONTINUED_**

* * *

**(1) **First translated into Quirmian from the original Klatchian by** Editions Parbouillé, **Quirm, as _**Preventez-vous coucher avec moi, ce soir (et aussi touts les autres soirs, pour un mille des nuits). Un roman de Madame Marmalade. **_

**(2) **See_** Jingo. **_

**(3)** See my story_** Nature Studies. **_

**_(4) _**The Roundworld referent is the way the Germans used elite paratroopers in airborne operations to capture Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and other strategic points in Holland and Belgium. Gliders were dropped on these cities, as well as conventional paratroops, who took key forts and bridges and held them until the rest of the German Army caught up by road. Holland capitulated inside three weeks in May 1940, a victory brought about by German airborne troops.

**(5) **See my story _**The Civilian Assistant. **_And yes, I do know i've got to finish this sometime! (Frankly, this one is being an all-time bugger: I can see its shape, I can see the individual gags and set-pieces and where they fit, so clearly... but can I raise the effort to finish it....)

**(6)** Johanna Smith-Rhodes, who in _**Nature Studies **_became a Watch special constable and advisor to Vimes. A much younger and less politically clued up Johanna had used a specialist knowledge of explosives to conclude a contract or two, leading the Assassins' Guild to display an interest in recruiting her. Less cautious Assassins have been heard to remark that in her own unique White Howondalandian way, by indiscriminately blowing up a Zulu warlord and thirty-one members of his extended family, she had given a whole new slant to the old phrase "inhumation with _extreme_ prejudice."

**(7)** _exothermic alchemical reagent_ - high explosive.

**(8)** It had only been one troll and seven men when she'd joined the guild. But the Assassins' Guild School expects its teachers to spend quality time during the hols on refresher and advanced courses, so that they stay attuned to their professional skills. And Emmanuelle is what is commonly known as "a high-maintainance woman". Her teachers' salary and a cut of her husband's pay wouldn't nearly be enough.

**(9) The Doofuss Affair, **as it came to be known in Quirm and the wider world, involved an otherwise blameless young captain who was allegedly discovered passing Quirmian state military secrets to Uberwald. As this was in the stinging aftermath of a brief but ruinous war between the two countries, Quirmian public opinion was looking for a scapegoat and it turned out to be Doofuss, sentenced to death, but later commuted to life imprisonment, Doofuss blamed the arrest and trial on prejudice against his Omnian nationality and religion. As this had involved boring the balls off his brother officers with prayer and exhortation to mend their ways, the judge suspected the case had been fitted up by brother officers who just couldn't stand the pious bugger any more, and who had conspired to get him busted before he drove them mad.


	15. Trial and Punishment

**_Picking up where I left off a year ago... it feels right and proper, somehow! _**

**_A cheat, as I'm picking up the thread ffrom already published material. But at last I worked out how Mr slant gets Death off the desertion charge on a technicality. Read on! _**

"_J'accuse!"_ Sergeant-major Cotton thundered, pointing an accusing finger, as some traditions must be upheld.

"Jack who?" the Ambassador wondered. Corporal Dry-Clean Only coughed, diffidently.

"Jack Hughes, your excellencyness. Llamedosian. Corporal in the Third Battalion. He's stationed on the Lower Sand Sea now, up against the Nudians."

Emmanuelle, who had naturally been invited to stay for the court-martial, shifted with embarrassment, but forced herself to say nothing. She exchanged a mutually held "_**Tccchhh!" **_noise and a rolled eye with the strange girl, the Sto Helit woman, who seemed one of the more sensible people in this farce of a farce. Maurice, her husband, turned to the other tribunal members, and exchanged looks with the legion Lieutenant and the UKE carpet-pilot, who, as honourable officers, had been asked to form a troika and deal judgement on this most strange Nidle fellow. Emmanuelle, who in her time had consigned twelve men and one Troll to their respective afterlives in exchange for money**(1)**, had a gut feeling that Nidle was more than he seemed. After all, she'd logically brushed shoulders with him thirteen times on other people's accounts, and another two or three for near misses of her own. It was strange to see him unveiled, and to wonder if she was the only person who saw him so. But no, the strange Sto Helit girl seemed to have some family connection, and she had been amused that one of the carpet-line flight wizards had taken one glance into the big reception room where the trial was being held, had screamed, and had run a long way away... and then there was...

Mr Slant coughed, drily.

"Your excellency, mon caporal. I believe you labour under a slight delusion. Monsieur le sous-officiere has in fact used the traditional opening words of the prosecution in a Quirmian military trial. Opening with the phrase "_J'accuse!" _and indicating the defendent has been standard practice ever since the trial, for treason, of the notorious Captain Doofuss **(2) **over a century ago."

"What, Jack Hughes? Hughes the Booze in Third Batallion?"

"No, no. the first person declarative singular tense of the verb _accuser_, to accuse, to lay fault or blame or guilt upon. " Slant said, slightly more quickly than it needed. Emmanuelle nodded, approvingly.

_**"I accuse!" **_

_**"I accuse**_!" he suddenly thundered. "This is no small thing, as the indictment against the defendant is a grave crime in military law that commonly carries the most extreme sanction, perhaps, even, death."

His eyes flickered to meet Susan StoHelit's, just for a moment.

"It deserves a harsh, peremptory, accusative, two syllables leaving no place for mitigation, moderation or softening of a necessarily harsh sentence. That is why we must assess the evidence rigorously and methodically and reach a verdict which best reflects the action and the circumstances."

The Klatchian Legal Attache, a man who life had posted here just in time for him to come up against Mr Slant in court, had been appointed to the prosecution. Mustapha Al-ybi was a fairly recent graduate of the law school at Al-Gebra University, albeit a starred first and a high-flyer. Even so, the reputation of Mr Slant reaches far and wide. Wherever there is a law school the name of Slant is known. Knowing this, Slant was happy to sit down and allow the prosecution to present its case.

This was simple and straightforward.

On this date several years previously, the prisoner turned up from apparently nowhere in the depths of the Klatchian desert, knocked on the door of Fort _Er...I'll remember in a minute, got it written down somewhere..., _officially known as Fort Zindernaif, and asked to enlist in the Legion. Sergeant-Major Cotton, then just Corporal Cotton, had processed the new recruit, explained to him his rights and those responsibilities consequent on his enlisting, issued a uniform and a bunk, and set about training the new...man. Any new recruit in the Legion has the right to a change of name, even though his original name will almost certainly be forgotten. This new recruit was very soon known as Beau Nidle, and, to be frank, was not a model soldier, incurring disciplinary procedures almost from day one.

He was released from arrest to assist in defending the fort from an attack by the D'Regs ...(at this point Barrister Al-Ybi's voice was heard to falter, as if he wasn't quite believing what he read upon the page). On successful defence of the fort and having assisted in the necessary and humanitarian work of burying bodies, Private Nidle, B., was seen leaving the fort in defiance of military law and convention, refusing all order to return. According to military law, at midnight plus one minute he was posted as AWOL. At one minute past midnight on the seventh day following his abscondment, his status officially became that of deserter.

"The only questions to ask, therefore, are these. I call Sergeant-Major Cotton to the stand."

Cotton stomped forward, crashed to attention and threw up a textbook salute. There was a lengthy pause while the duty librarian rolled a double-sided trolley of religious texts forward, for Cotton to select one he could take an oath upon.

"Got a good offer on Omnian texts this week, offendi" the Embassy librarian said, hopefully. "How about "_The selected and most vengeful testimonies of St Bobby_." No? Ah, good choice, offendi, good choice, _I don't mind if you lot all end up blind and eating through a straw, I am Offler thy God and I've still got both eyes and all my teeth, thanks. "_

Cotton raised the book and kissed it, in the Quirmian manner, before taking his oath.

"There are two questions I will ask you, Sergeant-Major" Al-Ybi began. "Firstly, is this the man you enrolled into La Legion, the man you knew as Tirailleur Beau Nidle?"

Cotton followed where Prosecution's arm was indicating.

"I have no doubts at all, sir" he said. "Very few people are six foot seven inches tall." He paused, and looked around at native-born Quirmians such as Emmanuelle and her husband, frowning as they tried to translate the height into something more familiar to them.

"That is, a centimetre or two shy of two metres. A tall man." Al-Ybi translated, seeing the difficulty.

"He stands out in a crowd, you might say, sir."

_And herein lies the difficulty_, thought Slant, biding his time.

"And my second question. You have heard the account of Tirailleur Nidle's service with La Legion. Do you regard it as correct and comprehensive?"

"I do, sir. This is without doubt the Legion deserter known as Nidle, B. "

Al-Ybi, with a doubtful look at Slant, nodded to the tribunal.

"Your excellency, members of the tribunal. I believe I have established both guilt and the identity of the accused. No further questions."

He sat down.

Colonel Maurice Lapoignard nodded acknowledgement.

"And the defence? Monsieur Slant, if you will."

Slant stood up.

"Your excellency, members of the tribunal. I beleive, as the prosecution has so rightly indicated, that the key witness here is _monsieur le sous-officière_. Therefore I have several questions for him."

Slant paused, allowing the wait to make the soldier nervous. He suspected fighting soldiers would rather face a volley of enemy arrows rather than intensive questioning from a superior officer.

Five hundred years of courtroom experience behind him, he chose the correct moment.

"An Army is an institution that prides itself on its administrative skills, is it not?" he asked, seemingly well off the immediate topic.

"It is that, sir, yes" agreed the sergeant-major, unsure of where this was going.

"In general terms, an Army, any Army, needs to justify its existence. It needs to justify the money spent on sustaining it, from the public purse or from any other sponsoring body. Every last _sou_ must be accounted for. There can be no waste, nor the possibility of waste, and certainly no suspicion of misappropriation of funds or equipment."

"Where is this going, Mr Slant?" Colonel Lapoignard asked, as custom and narrative dictates the judge should when a barrister is going off at a seemingly odd tangent unrelated to the case.

"Patience, Monsieur le Colonel." Slant said, smoothly. "If I may crave the Court's indulgence? _Merci beaucoup_. He returned to Sergeant-Major Cotton.

"And _La Legion Etrangère de Klatch_ is an old and proud unit that prides itself on its mastery of all military disciplines, not least its book-keeping and paperwork? Indeed, a Regiment trained, schooled and recruited in the Quirmian tradition to serve a mannered people such as the Klatchians may be nothing else."

"That is true, sir!" Cotton said, looking proud. Then Slant pounced.

"Kindly show me, then, the Army form RE111-d, parts a, b, and c, where the defendant will have no doubt signed his name and indicated his informed consent to the contract of service to which he was signing. I will also require to see the RE112, which is he written proof that he was given the normal signing-on honorarium payment known in demotic Morporkian as _the King's Shilling?_ Forgive me for not knowing the Quirmian term."

"There was a similar custom in Quirm." Emmanuelle found herself saying. "I believe a new recruit to the Armée received _le livre du Duc_, as a personal thank-you from the Grand Duc."

Mr Slant rewarded her with a gracious nod.

"I thank you, madame. It is always possible to learn new things, and the mind remains alive and alert for learning them.I am obliged to you."

He turned back to the sergeant-major.

To return. Even such small amounts as shillings need to be accounted for under the normal accounting and petty cash systems. I am therefore working under the assumption that a record exists of the defendant having received _le livre du Duc,_ or its Klatchian equivalent, through you when he joined the Legion. Please produce them."

There was an embarrassed pause.

"It is a reasonable request, _monsieur le sous-officièr. _As senior soldier in the fort, you would have been concerned with ensuring the paperwork was in order and filed so it could easily be retrieved. And we have established, I think, that without the appropriate signed paperwork to prove the defendant was ever a fully signed on member of the Legion, everything else id hearsay and circumstantial evidence, and therefore not permissible in court."

"Er,,, " said Sergeant-Major Cotton.

Slant turned to the panel.

"No further questions, mon Colonel." he said. "But I will remind you of the procedure for providing evidence in any court. It should ideally have been provided for this appearance today for the due guidance of the court members. Those vital pieces of paper which prove the defendant was ever a member of the Legion are clearly not here for inspection. Therefore I move that your choice is either to adjourn this appearance to a new date which allows time for retrieval of the necessary Army forms, or else to dismiss the case as unprovable. As clearly without paperwork to support the case, it reduces down to the unsupported word of Sergeant-Major Cotton against that of Death, the Alpha and the Omega. Thank you, gentlemen".

Slant sat down, nodding at Susan Sto Helit as he did so. Death looked on impassively as the tribunal officers went into a huddle. Three men in risky professions, two Army officers and a professional carpet pilot, quite clearly did not want to attract the ire of Death, nor indeed his attention, for longer than they needed to.

Finally the colonel nodded, stood, and pronounced verdict.

"After due consideration and examination by process of the facts of this singularly unique case, we are drawn to the conclusion that the case remains unproven. No blame attaches to _monsieur le sous-officière _Cotton for bringing the case, but we are unanimous in the conclusion that all this happened a long time ago. I would move that there is no point in opening an old case for longer than we need to, nor adjoining to a new date at considerable time and expense. The defendant has a socially valuable and necessary job to return to, for one thing. And even if it should bedetermined that he enlisted into and deserted from the Legion, then prior to his alleged desertion, he committed an act of alleged enterprise and bravery that more than wipes the slate clean. I do not propose to give him a medal for an act of bravery rumour says he might have committed; nor do I propose to detain him any further for an act of desertion that hearsay says he committed. One wipes out the other, and there is no case to answer. You are a free…. Person. My felicitations to you, monsieur."

Death's handcuffs were removed. As if on cue, Binky appeared. The Death of Rats was sitting on the saddle with a batch of hourglasses bundled together over one bony shoulder. He SQUEAKED urgently at Death, who took the hourglasses.

I THANK YOU, COLONEL. MR SLANT, YOU WILL NOT FIND ME UNGRATEFUL.

Mr Slant nodded, having achieved a renewal of his personal understanding with Death. As the girl had said, some things were more valuable than money.

Death swung himself into the saddle. The Death of Rats obligingly moved forwards and gripped a handful of mane with both bony paws.

SUSAN, YOU HAVE MY SCYTHE? THANK YOU FOR YOUR ASSISTANCE IN THIS MATTER.

"It's expected of me, Grandfather!" she said, shrugging.

Death nodded farewell, and rode hard at the wall. He and Binky disappeared.

_Grandfather? _thought Emmanuelle.

"_Cherie, _you look as if you might welcome a drink. May I presume?" she asked Susan. _This may be interesting._

"Thank you." Susan Sto Helit said, politely. She'd heard the Quirmian assassin could be convivial company. And it was Hogswatch, after all. "But _please _don't try to recruit me to the Assassins' School again. I've refused your offers often enough!"

* * *

**(1) **It had only been one troll and seven men when she'd joined the guild. But the Assassins' Guild School expects its teachers to spend quality time during the hols on refresher and advanced courses, so that they stay attuned to their professional skills. And Emmanuelle is what is commonly known as "a high-maintenance woman". Her teachers' salary and a cut of her husband's pay wouldn't nearly be enough. She is also, like her peers, an "ethical assassin" who only selects clients whose leaving the world would make it a little bit cleaner.

**(2) The Doofuss Affair, **as it came to be known in Quirm and the wider world, involved an otherwise blameless young captain who was allegedly discovered passing Quirmian state military secrets to Uberwald. As this was in the stinging aftermath of a brief but ruinous war between the two countries, Quirmian public opinion was looking for a scapegoat and it turned out to be Doofuss, sentenced to death, but later commuted to life imprisonment, Doofuss blamed the arrest and trial on prejudice against his Omnian nationality and religion. As this had involved boring the balls off his brother officers with prayer and exhortation to mend their ways, the judge suspected the case had been fitted up by brother officers who just couldn't stand the pious bugger any more, and who had conspired to get him busted before he drove them mad.


	16. Happy Hogswatch, one and all!

_**A Hogswatch Tale, 16**_

The coaches full of numb and half-frozen student Assassins rolled back into the city via the Least Gate, on the Ankh side of the river. Sitting in the fresh air on top of the coach and wrapping their cloaks about each other to ward off the worst of the cold, Alice and Jocasta were grateful to see familiar landmarks and City sights again.

Least Gate opened to Pallant Street, which many hundreds of years ago had been the line of least resistance taken by cows on their way to water, no doubt drawn from a much cleaner River Ankh. Following the natural valley between Nap Hill on its widdershins and The Tump on its turnwise, it was now one of the more upmarket addresses of the city. Alice noted the housing, as it rose up the sides of both hills, got progressively more expensive-looking, with natural green space crowning both the Tump and Nap. Well, with the exception of the ugly-looking and hyperfunctional Tump Tower, the sole remnant of Reacher Gilt's business empire before he had been disgraced. Alice looked up at the sheer height of the thing and wondered if Vetinari was going to have it knocked down and replaced. It really did seem to wobble in a high wind, a tendency not helped by all the clacks stations protruding from it at intervals.

In the distance, over towards the accepted diplomatic quarter further Turnwise and Rimwards, the pyramidical building that housed the Djelibeybian Embassy glittered frosty green and blue. Alice wondered how well the pyramid was adapted for heavy snowfalls, and whether its designers had ever considered snow in their calculations. Then she reasoned that the originals in Djelibeybi had been built to cope with scorching days and icy freezing nights, and because of their paracosmic nature, had accumulated a tonnage of ice and frost every night for thousands of years without obvious ill-effect. Anyway, she imagined a tipping point would be reached where it all cascaded down the side, as an avalanche on a man-made mountain.

Dripping with snow and rising in tiers on the hillsides to left and right, the houses of Ankh certainly did have a classical Hogswatch appearance to them; Alice found herself aching for the Hogwatchnights of childhood and happy times long ago. Jocasta smiled at her.

"You know my parents said you're very welcome to come over on Hogswatchday, Alice?" she said. "Dad said he'd really like to properly meet the woman who made an Assassin out of me. He thinks really highly of you."

Alice smiled. Wiggs Senior was a honoured Name in the profession. Two of his sons, and one daughter, had followed him through the School and were continuing the family reputation for a discreet service, delivered with the approved degree of style and discretion. Mr Wiggs was semi-retired now following an abortive attempt at the Big One, the seven-figure bounty on Commander Sir Samuel Vimes, Duke of Ankh. This had all gone horribly wrong, proving that even an Assassin with nearly thirty years' active experience can fall foul of over-confidence: he had not stopped to ask _why_ Vimes had a reputation for being unkillable, thus ratcheting up the contract fee on him. Possibly as a nod to the fact Vimes actually quite liked Jocasta and did not want to render her fatherless, the damage had been only a seriously broken leg: but it had been badly broken enough to render the elder Wiggs a shadow of his previous self. He had grumpily accepted semi-retirement, and now lived vicariously on the accomplishments of his three Assassin children, usually with his bad leg propped up on a footstool and a glass of port in his hand.

Alice had taught Jocasta as one of the very first girl pupils to arrive at the School. This had not been without incident: on several occasions she had found it necessary to vector her pupil on the Vimes Run, to get up close enough and undetected to Sam Vimes so as to be able to say, afterwards, she had been near enough to inhume him. Without fail, all the Vimes Runs had turned into embarrassing disasters, although Sir Samuel had unbent enough, towards the end, to allow her to keep a spare set of clothes at Ramkin Manor together with permission to take a bath – in the servants' quarters – prior to return to the Guild. Vimes had even been instrumental in her passing her Final Run, although they implicitly kept this a close-guarded secret.**(1)**

Alice smiled. She had met the Wiggs parents on open days and parent-teacher nights, had discussed the finer aspects of Jocasta's school reports with her mother and father, and had without fail received several boxes of Weinreich and Boetcher's finest chocolates each academic year as tokens of favour. She had also seen Jocasta grow from eleven to eighteen as a pupil and had liked what she had seen.

But there had been the Other Thing, that had started in the summer following Jocasta's graduation. Whilst Jocasta Wiggs had assisted Alice Band in completing a contract, much to the pride of Mr Wiggs, it could not be denied that other things had also happened between them that summer.**(2) **While Alice had no regrets, and Jocasta certainly had less, she wasn't quite certain how the Wiggs parents might react to knowing what _else _had happened between Alice and her former pupil that summer.

_Still, it made buddying up in the cold and sharing our bodily warmth a damn sight more enjoyable, in a covert sort of way, _Alice thought, as the coach rattled onto the causeway across a partially frozen Mort Lake. _If Cass hadn't been there, I'd have had to pick a senior student – not necessarily a cute one, but a warm one - and make absolutely sure nothing happened that could be gossiped about later. _**Utterly**_ frustrating, but necessary when you have a teacher's responsibilities. With Cass, I could freely let my fingers stray. _

Alice felt Jocasta snuggle closer under the blankets and wraps.

"It almost looks beautiful from up here, doesn't it?" Jocasta remarked, her hands pressed tightly to Alice's stomach, Alice's hands lightly resting on top of hers.

They looked out together through a gap between the houses on either side of Water Street, across the water where several pleasure boats were iced in together at the Nap Hill steps. Mort Lake had originally been a loop of the River Ankh; the effects of thousands of years of silting had closed off the loop, so that the lake was now divorced from its parent river. Paradoxically, this meant the water in the lake had not experienced the worst of what had happened to the water of the river, and was in fact purer by many orders of magnitude. Mort Lake was in fact used as a reservoir of drinking water – an old aqueduct had terminated here, linking the lake to a water source outside the City - and people with leisure time both fished and sailed here. The Guild used it for aquatic and water-based activities (it trained its students relentlessly, insisted on offering boating and other watery activities as options, but still held that subjecting them to the waters of the Ankh was a reckless and imprudent risk to take with valuable young lives who all attracted tuition fees.). Indeed, a scattering of hopeful and well-wrapped anglers had knocked holes in the ice and were contentedly sitting at the lakeside, lines extended to pick up any hardy fish life that cared to bite.

"Almost picturesque!" Alice agreed, squeezing gently on Jocasta's hands. Then she smiled at Jocasta. "I don't know about you, but I definitely need a bath later. Before any social drinkies at your parents. And so, I think, do you!"

"Yes, Alice." Jocasta murmured, submissively. Bathtime was always more fun if there were somebody else to scrub your back. They cuddled as close as public viewing safely allowed, and allowed the coach to rattle onwards through the Backs towards Sator Square, Filigree Street and home.

* * *

Ponder and Johanna had flown on ahead and were waiting at the Guild to welcome the rest of the party. Like Alice and Jocasta, Johanna felt itchy and grubby and in need of a bath and a change of clothes. She envied Ponder that he'd been able to fit in both a bath and a hot meal earlier that morning. But there was no question of bathing until the whole of the expedition party had returned, cleaned and stored and accounted for their equipment, and had been formally discharged.

She passed the time by catching up on her post, trying to ignore the stairs leading to her apartments that beckoned bath, bed and clean clothes.

_Later, Johanna, _she told herself, firmly.

Hmm. A note from her uncle, the Howondalandian ambassador, reminding her it would be nice if she dropped by at the Embassy for at least one sit-down meal that Hogswatch._ And bring the young man, _a note in her aunt's handwriting commanded.

A routine communication from the Zoo concerning how the tropical big cats were coping in the cold and snow: extra bedding had been provided and additional insulation had been nailed over the shelters in the pens. Apparently the Klatchistanian Snow Tigers were thriving.

One from the Watch: a special constable who spoke Vondalaans was needed to translate for a group of Howondalandian sailors who had been picked up as drunk and disorderly. It was dated for two nights before. Johanna considered it: by now, the Watch would have been informed she was out of town, and somebody from the Embassy would have had to go to the Watchhouse to face down a bunch of drunken sailors and advise them they were in deep trouble. She yawned. Who knows, Downey might even have sent Ruth N'Kweze to assist the Watch and translate. _That_ would have been amusing. The first drunken Boor to use the K-word, either of the n-words or indeed the d-word would have found his hand nailed to the table by a throwing knife, with Vimes – in his way a very fair-minded copper - no doubt taking the point of view that calling a black Howondalandian Assassin, a daughter of the Kwa'Zulu Royal House, a "nigger", went down in the books as a suicide attempt.

Johanna smiled. She'd have to find out how that one went. Being an Embassy relative brought occasional consular chores of this nature, usually a Rimwards Howondalandian who had been too _stroeppy_ in the wrong place and been picked up by the Watch afterwards. She was on the rota for providing consular and translation duties once every month, and during times when the Embassy was undermanned and understrength.

She leaned back in her chair.

"Thenks for covering for me, Vinnie!" she said. "Enything thet needs to be reported?"

"If the girls were up to anything illegal, they covered it up very well!" Davinia Bellamy answered her. "Otherwise they were good as gold!"

"Gled to hear it. Nothing else?"

"Well, there is one thing…" Davinia inclined her head towards Ponder Stibbons, who was looking into the glass-fronted and double-locked weapons cabinet in the Raven House office, trying to guess the purpose and method of deployment of some of the more obscure items.

Johanna was slightly slow to guess the point, but divined eventually it was something Davinia didn't feel comfortable talking about in front of Ponder. She allowed herself to be drawn away, and the two women had a low-voiced conversation at the window, occasionally looking down and across the yard in the direction of Black Widow House, Johanna raising a surprise eyebrow, Davinia nodding emphatically. An occasional "IzzatSO?" or "Jislaik?" emerged from the low muttering, with Davinia nodding most emphatically.

He wondered what they were talking about.

"So I'm afraid some of the girls are going to be asking some very forward and in some cases precocious questions, Jo." Davinia said, apologetically. "I never realised. They are _worse _than boys in some respects!"

"Et least the boys tend to go red with emberrassment . They shut up end hope the nightmare is soon over. The girls, now…" Johanna paused.

"You only have boys, Vinnie? This is your first exposure to young girls, of course."

"Three sons. I should tell Peter that if we want a daughter, he'd better know now it's a completely different rule book! But now we know what Emmanuelle sees in him. Have you met him yet?"

"He must store a lot up from ten months in the desert." Johanna said, thoughtfully. "Like a cemel, perheps, only not with water."

"You'll meet him at High Dinner tonight. Oh, hello, looks like the rest of your party are home!"

Coaches were starting to clop in through the gate. Johanna called Ponder. They went downstairs to the yard together; Johanna stopped a Guild servant and asked her to find Mr Jones, thenk you.

And then the thirty students were gathered in the Yard, along with their instructors and Lord Downey. Downey commended them again on their dedication and professionalism in the most adverse circumstances, suggested that Miss Band and Miss Smith-Rhodes write an appropriate short commendation that could be read at High Dinner, then excused himself to his other duties.

Alice waited for him to disappear, then spoke to the tired and expectant students.

"I'll keep this short." she said. "You'll be pleased to know you have all passed the winter survival course. You did what was expected of you and some of you performed in excess of all expectations. That will be recognised officially as extra course credits. I will need to have words, privately, with one or two of you about issues that arose…" her eyes found those of miss Perkins, the one suspected of harbouring magic. She sighed. If what they suspected was correct, having to effectively expel the girl for no fault of her own was going to be a painful duty. But she'd be better off training as a witch, with people who knew how to deal with the potential. Besides, a trainee Assassin who could, for instance, land a throwing knife right on target every time just by willing it to hit, would make everybody uncomfortable.

"…but I would be obliged if none of you puts any unfavourable interpretation on that. Now I know that you are all aching to get back to your dorms, bathe, and change clothes. I certainly am. But the very last thing we will do is to return all issued gear to the stores in a condition fit for use. If we are sensible this will take less than half an hour. Then the term is over and your Hogswatch holiday begins. I thank you all for your whole-hearted effort and the last thing that remains is for you all to express thanks to Professor Stibbons of the University, who generously gave his time to accompany us.

"In the new year, the Professor will be giving a short series of lectures on the history of Wizardry and Assassination and how the two disciplines have interacted and worked with – or even _against _– each other over the years. These will not be compulsory, but I recommend you to attend. Now Miss Smith-Rhodes has a few words to say. Thank you."

Johanna stepped forward. Behind and to one side of her, a tall, bulky, man in white overalls and blue apron tried not to look too self-important. She smiled.

"I too will be brief." she said. "When we set out, we were each issued a set of mess tins end a personel set of cutlery. We were also issued a set of cauldrons end associated equipment for field cookery. Provide them, if you please. Thenk you. Now es you cen see, the cauldrons are burnt _bleck_, end despite our best efforts, congealed on the inside. This is not a fit state for their to be returned to stores, Mr Jones?"

The big man shook his head and regarded the blackened items with professional interest. Jones took the point of view that a dirty utensil was a personal and professional insult, as the Guild's scullery staff and kitchen porters knew to their cost.

"Absolutely not, ma'am!" he said.

"Mr Jones performs a veluable job for the Guild, but one thet is rarely seen publicly. He runs the scullery. Thet is where ell the plateware, glesses, cutlery end the kitchen pots end pens go to be cleaned efter every food service. Without him and his team, we would be a lot less healthier end probably eating our meat with our fingers, straight off the bone."

Ponder Stibbons, regarding Mr Jones, thought immediately of Mr Smeems, the Candle Knave at the University, a man who was convinced his humble occupation was the lynchpin around which all civilized life revolved. Which it was, for a given value of "true" – light was essential for just about everything and the man who organised a team to provide it was an important employee. Just as the man who organised the deadly soul-destroying labour of washing up after every meal and keeping the kitchen hygienically clean was also important, or else we'd all be down with a dozen dreadful gastric diseases. The Joneses and the Smeemses of this world were, in their way, important people. There was no getting around that. _Or we'd all be sitting in the dark, eating undercooked food with our fingers. _

The problem was that they had risen to the top of a very short career ladder in occupations that could not really be called "skilled". They could consequently be replaced very easily. And they'd let it go to their heads a bit and become self-important: obsequious to their social betters, tyrants to those unlucky enough to work under them. But all the same, Ponder appreciated the way Johanna was playing on the man's self-esteem so as to get a favour out of him.

"Now. Display your mess-tins end cutlery. Mr Jones, you will review them with me? Thenk you. "

Every so often, Johanna pulled some luckless student from the rank and made them stand to one side. She took Jones' advice frequently, ensuring she had six students detailed.

"You hev been selected because your mess tins or your cutlery were ebsolutely _filthy. _" she said, at the end. "Now I know this is not fair, es you might not have been the person to have eaten out of them _ell the time_. But hed you been prudent, you would hev ensured the tins end the cutlery were ecceptably clean _efter _the lest time _you _ate from them. Life promises meny things, but it never to my knowledge claimed to be fair. End you will learn thet out in the wilds, there must be an ecceptable stenderd of cleanliness. Any sickness brought ebout by eating with dirty utensils I will consider avoidable. It is therefore negligient end sloppy. You will learn this lesson!"

She smiled.

"The six of you are now detailed to the care of Mr Jones, who will supervise you in weshing, cleaning end sterilizing all issued eating utensils, not just your own, to _his_ setisfection. You will treat him with respect as if he were a teacher in the Guild, end he hes been instructed to report beck to me on any insubordination or other unsetisfectory conduct. Now don't look so eppaled! You will be working in the warm for no longer then an hour, end you mey even learn something!"

She nodded, and the six detailed pupils fell in behind Jones. Johanna called them back.

"You are forgetting the cauldrons!" she called. "You are to wash those too!"

Gloomily, they collected the cooking pots and all thirty-four sets of eating irons. Johanna smiled, then set about supervising the return of tents, groundcloths, picks and shovels to the appropriate storerooms. She know Jones would inevitably complain: he would not be Jones otherwise. But his personality meant ninety per cent of the complaints could be safely disregarded.

And then at last the pupils were dismissed and the teaching staff were alone in the courtyard.

"Professor Stibbons?" Alice said. "May I prevail upon you for one last favour?"

"What would you like, Miss Band?"

* * *

The favour was delivered up in Alice's personal rooms. Again Ponder was interested in how another lady Assassin chose to personalise her space. Johanna's rooms had the usual standard furniture, including a weapons rack and armour stand for her personal kit. There were Howondalandian landscapes on the walls, which evocatively depicted the open skies, the wide-open veldt, the wildlife, and telling little details like the impi of Zulu warriors about to close on its target. Another large-scale picture depicted the last stand at Isandhlwana and again, the desperate defence of Lawkes' Drain. _("I hed encestors et both", _she had said._ "End here, et Spion Koep, where Enkh-Morpork lost the War of Independence")_ A set of Kwa'Zulu military weapons adorned the wall over her weapons rack. _(They used to belong to an Impi commander. Trophies of war, Ponder.")_ Ponder had looked at the assegai and knobkerrie and feathered switch crossed behind the ox-hide shield, and had made a shrewd guess as to who had won them in combat. Several well-tended pot plants added a touch of green – herbs and healing plants from Home that could thrive indoors in Ankh-Morpork. Ponder recognised rooibush and aloe vera.

Otherwise, Johanna's rooms had been frugal and sparsely furnished: a place for sleeping and marking essays.

Alice's rooms were no less recognisable as those of a career Assassin. Where Johanna's had mounted captured Kwa'Zulu regalia on the wall, a large hunting bow and a quiver of arrows took pride of place. While the bow _could_ have been used for hunting animals, the arrow-heads all unambiguously pointed to bigger and potentially more dangerous game still. Long pointed bodkins for puncturing armour; leaf-bladed heads which could take off a limb; barbed heads for moments where extreme prejudice was called for; and others whose purpose was unclear.

Elsewhere, the pictures were of softer, more subtler, moments: classical Ephebian art reproductions, except for the one from Ephebian mythology depicting the moment where the Goddess of Hunting and the Chase, irked at being spied upon in her bath by a peeping tom, looses her ferocious hunting dogs on him to reinforce the lesson that _I am your Goddess and when I'm pissed, I'm mean. __**(3)**_

There was also a smaller reproduction of Caravati's _Three Large Pink Women and One Piece of Gauze_. **(4) **Ponder wondered how many inhumations bought a reproduction statue like that. Even a copy, and this was a good one, would cost thousands.

He shook hands with the normally frightening Joan Sanderson Reeves, who had been filling in for Alice and looking after her girls in House while she was away. Even full of Hogswatch spirit as she was and genuinely pleased to see him, she still reminded Ponder Stibbons of a (currently) benevolent vulture.

"I do hope our girls have been looking after you out in the wilds, professor!" she declared. "Although from what I hear, _you_ had to look after _them_ when that frightful business with the damn' Gods blew up!"

"Johanna worked it out, in the end." Ponder said, modestly. "Don't you have a prize for people who manage to inhume Gods and supernatural personifications?"

"Oh yes. The Teatime Prize. Not much money in it, but there's prestige and a bit of tinware. It'll look good in the Raven House trophy cabinet! It's been discussed in Council, Johanna. When all the reports are in and confirmed, you'll be awarded the prize in front of full School next term. A first for us – well, a _second_, after Teatime bagged the Hogfather a few years back. They come back, of course, those damn' people always do, but it's still an achievement!"

"Anything serious happen while I was away, Joan?"

"Oh, caught that frightful Fourecksian girl trying to creep out of School out of hours with some gutter tick from the Thieves' Guild. Read her the riot act and threw the young swain in question into a cell, for Boggis's people to collect at their leisure. He should have known better than to try and sneak into our dorms at night, grubby little oik!"

Alice made a note.

"Thanks, Joan. Anything else?"

"Well, there _is_ an issue…" the older teacher looked shifty for a second or two. Her eyes passed over Ponder and back again.

"Vinnie Bellamy mentioned something to me." Johanna said, picking up the change in tone. . "Is this to do with…"

The four teachers then went into a whispering huddle by the window, Jocasta sneezing with laughter, phrases like "All night?" and "How many times?" emerging from the sussuration.

Joan, a woman who could not whisper silently if she tried, said

"Well, the damn fellow's in the Klatchian Foreign Legion, isn't he? What's the betting that when he's, er, _finished,_ he forgets he's just done it and starts all over again? Emmanuelle would never let on, the…"

"Dutiful wife?" said somebody. Joan snorted.

"I can't even call the girl a hussy, as in this rare and singular instance she's hussing her own husband!"

"Which by definition is not hussying." Alice said, thoughtfully. "But it certainly explains the attraction. He looks such a washed out grey little chap. He must be a good twenty years older!"

"_Quirmian_, though!" said Joan, dissaprovingly. Ponder thought the way she said "Quirmian" made it sound like the country was the wellspring of every kind of depravity and unhygienic going-on known to men or Gods. It had that sort of well-brought-up Morporkian cultural prejudice about it.

"Glad you're both back, anyway. You might be able to say something to her, tactfully."

"We'll work something out." Alice reassured her. "What are you doing over Hogswatch, Joan? You live alone, don't you?"

"Now don't go feeling sorry for the cranky old lady living on her own – because nobody knows better than me how hard I am to live with - with nobody to share the season with." Joan said, warningly. "As a matter of fact it's all sorted out. Humphrey and Grune will be taking me to dinner on successive nights. Hogswatch Day will be spent with the Bellamys, who have very kindly invited me over to join their family. This means that Humphrey and Grune will not be fighting for me on the day itself and I have the opportunity to relax with a family. I will also be here, of course, assisting over the season. I doubt, outside sleeping, I will be on my own once!"

Alice smiled. She looked kindly at Jocasta, who was just working it out.

"That's a staffroom secret, by the way!" she said. "Mr Mericet _does_ have a first name, and it's "Humphrey". He keeps it very well guarded, and I don't think a mere teaching assistant with less than a year's experience is supposed to know that."

Alice smiled at Ponder.

"The Caravati replica is very good, isn't it? And then there's the Buttajelli over here, _The Birth of the Goddess Petunia_, where legend says she sprang fully-formed out of the cash till at the House of Repute with nothing more than her own hair to cover her modesty."

Alice led him around the tasteful reproductions, and said "Here we are at the bathroom, Professor. Now the heating up here depends on a cranky old boiler in the attic and a pump that flinches now and again. Half the time I'm boiling a kettle in the morning for a stand-up wash at the basin."

"It's been bad these last few days!" Joan called.

"It makes you feel like taking on a contract just to pay the astronomical fees the Plumbers' Guild demand." Alice said. "And Lord Bloody Downey gets evasive when you ask if the Guild can pay, and he starts going on about budgets and capital renovation costs and things."

"I've been living here for nearly a week, m'dear. If you like, _I'll _have a quiet meaningful little word with Donald about the hot water and the heating!" Joan offered.

Alice bent over the bath, then straightened up and turned the cold water on.

"The way I see it, Professor, you've been heating water for cooking for the last few days. Is there any magic left over to heat up a bath for us?"

Ponder looked round from a mental comparison between Alice's and Johanna's bathrooms. He'd seen Johanna's, which was strictly functional: soap, toothpaste, a few bottles and packets of the usual sorts of shampoos, lotions and bath salts. Enough to fill two or three smallish shelves.

Alice Band's bathroom was a shrine to relaxation, with seven or eight times the supporting logistics of Johanna's. He also noted she was putting out two lots of towels and flannels.

Making an intelligent guess, he levelled his staff and enchanted the tap. _Not too much… the problem with Ridcully and the Dean and the old-time wizards is that they don't know when to stop. Miss Band will not thank me for providing superheated steam that strips the enamel off the cast-iron. _

"Why the tap, Professor?" Jocasta asked, politely.

"It's something I learnt from Arch-chancellor Ridcully's brother, the High Priest" Ponder explained. "He once needed a bathful of Holy Water for a really tricky exorcism. It occurred to him, and I use his words, why the blue bloody blazes should he waste time, spiritual energy and the goodwill of Blind Io on sanctifying thirty gallons of tapwater, when all he needed to do was bless the tap. So that any water passing through the Holy Faucet of Blind Io was, by definition, pure and holy and sanctified. Less bloody effort, he said, and the charge lasts longer."

Alice laughed.

"Dear old Uncle Hughnon!" she said. "So you're putting a spell on the tap so that any water passing through it will be at exactly the correct temperature for a bath?"

"It should last about three months before the magic wears off" Ponder assured her. "I also notice you're laying out two lots of bathtowels. I assume you and Miss Wiggs are going to toss a coin, or something, to see who gets first bath?"

"Something like that, yes." Alice said, cautiously. She looked at Johanna, who signalled in finger code _He really is that innocent! He doesn't know! _

"Well, what if I make it self-cleaning? And add a sub-spell to say that water once in the bath remains at the right temperature until you pull the plug? Standard housekeeping magic at the University!"

"Whatever you feel works, Professor.." Alice said, relieved.

And, half an hour later after Joan had left, and Johanna had very firmly steered Ponder towards the door, Alice and Jocasta were enjoying bath night, having leisurely undressed and disarmed each other. There were in fact four piles of personal apparel on the floor and table: two of clothing, and two of personal concealed weaponry.

"Happy Hogwatch!" said Jocasta, as she rubbed the bar of soap between her wet hands to work up a lather. Alice smiled back at her from over her shoulder, her skin glistening wet in the candlelight.

"Happy Hogwatch!"

Ponder Stibbons waited in the living room while Johanna was in the bath. They were off to the University later, after all, for a formal dinner with the wizards. He braced himself for some of the squirming embarrassments the Faculty were likely to cause. At least Ridcully was a friend – he'd been quietly appreciative of Johanna since the business with the animal escape in the park in the summer, and he was intellectually behind the Zoo whilst despairing of an institution that was keen on _breedin_' so many fine brutes without feelin' the slightest desire to _kill_ any as trophies. Still, Jo's colleague Davinia had left for her home and family, but not before unsubtly hinting that Johanna's reaction if he went into the bathroom might be something _other_ than fear or anger. But being Ponder, he sat there and dithered. The potential for getting _this _wrong had rather more consequences than those involved merely facing down Gods and supernatural entities.

"Ponder? Bring me some clean towels?"

It was entirely in his nature that he knocked on the bathroom door before going in, and kept his eyes firmly closed.

"Oh, good _grief_…" she muttered. "Ponder, I give you permission to open your eyes, OK?"

He opened them. There really wasn't much to see, apart from a leg at one end and Johanna's head and shoulders at the other. The rest of her was chastely concealed by a sea of bubbles.

She smiled at him.

"There are bits of my back I can't reach…" she said. "End a hend weshing my hair would be really nice!"

Ponder happily gave in to a different kind of magic. And two other people had a happy Hogwatch.

* * *

**(1) **Captain Carrot had once asked why Vimes appeared to have a soft spot for Jocasta and had covertly helped in her education. Looking uncomfortably shifty under his Captain's frank gaze, Vimes had muttered something about "well, you know… wanting to engineer a better class of Assassin… I don't mean _socially_, Carrot, just, well, you know, _better_… all-round." Vimes also remembered her birthday, something both Jocasta and Lady Sybil found sweet. Hogswatch would find a card from Lady Sybil and a superbly engineered pair of matching stilettos (not the shoe kind) in her present-bag.

**(2) **See my story _**Career Guidance**_

**(3) **In Greek mythology, the moment where Artemis/Diana takes a moonlight skinny-dip, only to realise the human hunter Alcmene is watching her bathe. She then dispatches her dogs to deliver a short, painful, message that this body is not for _men'_s eyes, have you got that? Artemis, in certain circles, is regarded as a patron Goddess of alternative lifestyles.

**(4) **To us**, The Three Graces. **Usually taken as a sculpture of three near-nude women being touchy-feely in a non-sexual group hug kind of way, take a very close look where some hands are going. Canova's statue is _just _ambiguous enough for it to have become a subtle lesbian icon. Apparently.


	17. Is there snow in Howondaland?

_**'Twas Hogswatch Night with the Wizards...**_

_I had to write sometrhing as a psotscript to "Pere Porcher" and it has to be now... next week would be too late. Here it is with a happy Hogswatch had by all, except perhaps by Mrs Anaglypta Huggs..._

_This was typed up in a hurry to get it out there as a Hogswatch present. There will be typos. Please make allowances..._

_REVISION: I have added in further referents to a Certain Christmas Song, which when I just heard it on the radio was a face-forehead-palm-slap moment of "How could I have missed THAT?" See if you can spot it... _

Johanna had dressed with care for her dinner date at the University that night. Rather (after Ponder had eventually left to report in to Arch -Chancellor Ridcully), she had allowed herself to be dressed by her friends and colleagues. She had to grudgingly accept the result was not bad at all: a tightly laced bustier top in brown satin over white puffed sleeves, and a full grey-white dress with fashionable button-boots. Where Ponder was concerned, she suspected a conspiracy. She smiled, remembering the afternoon. Ponder had left looking as if he was walking on air. A couple of Raven House senior girls who were staying on for the hols had frowned at this. Even on a short walk between Filigree Street and the university, _nobody_ with any sense drifted along in a self-absorbed blissful trance, even if there was a very good reason for Ponder to be blissful.

"Perhaps we should follow him, Miss? Discreetly, I mean. So he doesn't get into trouble."

The girls were sincerely concerned. Johanna smiled with gratitude. "Please. I would be thenkful. You cen both cell this a bodyguarding essignment for special merit points."

The girls, both on the second year to the Black, went off to fulfil their duty. One turned and said "Oh, Miss? We think it's _really_ sweet. We wish you every happiness!"

"Thenk you." Johanna said, moved. She knew her pupils would move silently and inobtrusively and Ponder would never even notice they were there. She'd taught them, after all. She frowned: it might be useful if she taught _Ponder_ a few tricks. She didn't want to lose him, not now, not after that glorious afternoon...

Fighting off an attack of wholly unaccustomed warm fuzzies, she waited for Alice and Gillian, sensing what was coming next.

* * *

And now she was at the University, her colleagues having assured her, with absolutely straight faces, that there was no reason for her to hurry back early. Her residual House functions would be covered, don't worry about that, now off you go and have a jolly good time!

The Great Hall of the University was packed, in direct contrast to the Guild of Assassins at this time of year. No wizard or student wizard wanted to miss a meal, and certainly not a meal of this magnitude. She had caused a minor stir walking in, arm-in-arm with Ponder Stibbons, but was very relieved she was not the only woman present.

And she reflected a distinct pecking order applied. Student Wizards were on the tables furthest from the kitchens, out towards the back of the hall. Graduate wizards, ascending in level and seniority, occupied those tables in the middle of the hall, the most senior Wizards taking the seats nearest to the high Table and, coincidentally, nearer to the kitchen doors. With an eye conditioned by mealtimes at the Assassins School, she recognised the tables occupied eight distinct lines, each corresponding to one of the Eight Orders of Wizardry. _Just like the House system, _she thought_, only they don't call them houses here. _

Ponder, nominally a member of The Illuminated Brethren of Midnight** (1)**, had explained about the Orders. She gathered they were nowhere near as powerful as they had been in the old days – apparently some sort of cataclysm or crisis had happened, which wizards were reluctant to talk about, which had resulted in the power of the Orders being severely truncated. This had led to a power vacuum, with none of the weakened Orders being able to seize the Arch-Chancellor's Hat for itself. A truce had been declared and the eight Heads had scoured the records looking for a figurehead Arch-Chancellor, one who might last just long enough to allow the Orders to lick their wounds and rebuild strength. They had looked for a weak, ineffectual, pushover. By an incredible error of judgement, they had actually got Mustrum Ridcully.

And he had been there ever since.

And he was there now, presiding over High Table, the raised dais where the Faculty, the most senior Wizards, dined in splendour, nearest of all to the kitchens and therefore best placed to be served first. Johanna was pleasantly pleased to discover Ponder Stibbons had a place here, despite his youth. It meant that for the evening, she was in a peer group with some of the most powerful people in the City – the wizards' guests included Sir Harry and Lady King, Lord and Lady Venturi, Mrs Proust, (who Johanna knew by reputation to be the Witch whose steading was the whole city), Moist von Lipwig the Postmaster, and his undeclared fiancee Adora Belle Dearheart. And wasn't that...

"_And I say to you, Dean!_" bellowed a familiar voice. "Yes, we blasted well ARE having women on the High Table tonight and that is by MY say-so! _I do apologise, ladies, he gets these moods sometimes _And besides, there is nothing in the Lore that prevents a Wizard from paying court to a young woman – well, she may also be a lady rich in experience – that he happens to find attractive!"

Ridcully nodded to the University's normally formidable housekeeper Mrs Whitlow, who seemed to be out of place at the High Table. An elderly Wizard with grey hair and beard fading to white was paying earnest attention to her.

"And besides, this is our gift to our wonderful Mrs Whitlow, in token thanks for her unstintin' service throughout the year, and a mark of how much we appreciate her!"

Mrs Whitlow blushed slightly and waved a self-deprecating hand. A voice mumbled _Some of us take appreciation to new levels, don't we, Runes? _

"Pack it _in,_ Dean." Ridcully said. Then he noticed Ponder and Johanna.

"Ah, lad!" he boomed. He paid Ponder scant attention. "Johanna! M'_Dear_! Might I say you are looking lovely tonight? Almost didn't recognise you with different clothes on!"

"I'm so gled you phrased it thet wey, Erch-Chencellor." Johanna said, allowing Ridcully to take her arm and lead her to her place. Ponder, disregarded for the moment, followed. And so Hogswatch Eve Dinner commenced at the University, Ponder squirming inside and dreading what embarrassing gaffes his colleagues would make. Johanna, meanwhile, was quietly looking forward to making observations about a different sort of hierarchical social animal. She wondered if the Wizard group dynamic most resembled meercats, lions, hyenas, chimpanzees, or ants. _Going by the size of them, bewilderbeeste or hippos, probably._

* * *

Back at the Guild of Assassins, a group of staff members had gathered in Alice Band's quarters and were having a social drink. Alice and Jocasta, bathed, clean and in smart casual clothes, would later that evening be having a light dinner and a social drink with Jocasta's family. Their walk back to the Guild would take in The Temple of Blind Io, where her adoptive uncle, Hughnon Ridcully, would be leading a midnight carol service. Alice hoped for a chat with Uncle Hughnon concerning Ponder Stibbons' observation that she could learn to channel the God-Consciousness. She wanted to know, beforehand, if there were any potential drawbacks.

Joan Sanderson-Reeves had excused herself to go for her dinner-date with a male admirer. As everyone knew it was Grune Nivor, she had been waved off with thanks and good wishes. Davinia Bellamy had hung on for just long enough to see that Johanna Smith-Rhodes, in her opinion, was properly dressed and presentable for a night out with _her_ young chap. Then she had gone, for family time with her husband and sons.

This left Alice Band, Jocasta Wiggs, Gillian Lansbury and miss Pretty Butterfly. Lady T'Malia, the most senior woman teacher in the School, had made herstately and unhurried way over to join her female staff for a drink and thank them for their dedicated work. Emmanuelle Lapoignard Les Deux-Epées should have joined them, but right now, quite audibly, she was attending to her husband's needs.

It was an elephant-in-the-room moment. Everyone could _hear_ it, but nobody wanted to _talk_ about it. Alice exchanged a moment of eye-contact with Jocasta. It said _at least we shut the bedroom window!_

"So this is what you've had to put up with... all week?" Alice asked.

T'Malia, Butterfly and Gillian all nodded, wearily.

"You could laugh about it at first." T'Malia remarked. "But to be frank, my dear, it's getting to be a bit of a bore now!"

Butterfly sighed. "The great philosopher Ly Tin Wheedle, he has said that the excessive noise of those engaged in Opening The Jade Gate with the Peerless Pestle can become as an unwelcome sensation in the fundament, should it go on for too long."

There was a pause as the others untangled the Agatean metaphors.

"_Jade Gate_." mused T'Malia. "Now there's one I've never come across before."

Alice wasn't sure; in her experience she'd never seen an irridescent slightly translucent green one before. **(2)**

"Well, I'm blowed if I'm going knocking on her door while she's... you know." T'Malia went on. "I mean, what do you _say_?"

"Somebody has to send her a message..." mused Jocasta Wiggs.

A light went on in Alice's brain. She fumbled in a draw, found a pad of headed Guild writing paper, and scribbled a short message. She showed it to everyone, and received approval. Then she wrapped it tightly around an arrow and tied it in place.

"I hope I shall not be forced, with _exceeding_ reluctance, to intervene at this point." said lady T'Malia, as Alice nocked her bow. There was a brief technical discussion at the window.

_Two hundred yards, do you think? _

_Slight Hubwards wind, say force three.._

_It's a diagonal shot across the yard, dropping a storey... the window's open..._

_Think of it as like aiming for the outer at three hundred..._

_The bed's situated about six yards back from the windowsill... I've seen the inside of her room..._

_Remember Zen breathing, Alice-san. You must be both the archer and the arrow and clear your mind of all thought..._

T'Malia sighed and poured herself another drink.

There was the zing of an arrow. After a short pause, there was a distant _Thunkkk!_ of an arrow hitting wood. Another silent pause after that, there was the sound of a window being abruptly closed. Firmly closed. And after that, silence.

Alice basked in congratulation and admiration.

Her note had simply read

_Cut out the noise or close the bloody window._

_Your dear friend_

_Alice Band. _

T'Malia smiled. She knew she had chosen well in Alice.

"I shall overlook any consequential damage to Guild property, my dear." she said. After all, it _is_ Hogswatch!" _And I shall sleep soundly in my bed tonight_, she added to herself.

Lady T'Malia raised a glass.

"Cheers, my dears!" she proclaimed.

* * *

At the University, things were going very convivally. Sir Harry King was, in his own words, "dead chuffed" to have been invited to such a gathering of the great and good. Lady King was visibly enjoying herself.

"Sam Vimes suggested it." Ridcully said, cheerfully. He and Sir Harry were now on the Old Peculiar in big flagons and discovering common ground. "he said you'd get on here a treat. And the least we can do, anyway, seeing as the Magical Waste Recycling Facility is up and running safely."

"You gave me one of your wizards to manage and advise." Sir Harry said, cheerfully. "And in any case, it's just another sort of waste product that needs more careful handling."

Johanna gleamed that Sir Harry and the University had entered into a mutually co-operative arrangement to strip and safely store the residual magic in the university's waste and were sharing the profits, fifty-fifty. Ponder had had a hand in setting this up.

"Very clever man, your young lad, miss." Sir Harry said to her. "By the way, all the crap I pick up at the Zoo sells like hot cakes. Well, like hot _something_, anyway. Can't get enough of it!"

Johanna enjoyed seeing the more well-bred people at the table blanch slightly. Even if it wasn't her preferred topic of dinned conversation.

"Which reminds me." Ridcully said, thoughtfully. "I may need to call on yer professional services in the new year, me dear. Don't know if Stibbons has already said it to you, but we need a pest control squad down in our cellars. Plague of them damn marmalade things in the pipes. Too short to hunt, to small to eat and no use to man or beast."

"That's _marmosets_, sir." Ponder said, helpfully.

"Marmosets, marmalades. Damn tiny mon..." He paused, as the Librarian looked up from his end of the table. "They _are_ monkeys, aren't they?"

Johanna smiled. A delicious picture of several hundred six-inch tall apes wanting to express dissent at being called monkeys passed through the screen of her inner vision. It would be like being worked over by simian Feegles.

"They are monkeys, sir. It is perfectly safe to cell them thet." she reassured him.

"Damn good! And we got some of those _yes-yes_ brutes down there too!"

"_Aye-Ayes,_ sir." Ponder corrected him again. Ridcully glared at him.

"Whatever they are, they're a damn nuisance! Little blighters wander around, free as you like, scared of nothing, get everywhere. New woman running the Night kitchen nearly gave in her notice when these hairy little fellas with the big eyes shambled into her kitchen and started eating things. She thought they was foul ghouls from the depths of the earth!"

"Which around here is _not_ an unreasonable supposition." murmured another Wizard, who had been introduced to Johanna as the Senior Wrangler.

"Anyway, she thought they was ghouls or goblins or little orcs, walking into her kitchen, bold as you please, and eatin' stuff."

"Funny how Glenda Sugarbean never saw them." observed the Wrangler.

"Ha! _Glenda?_ The little buggers wouldn't have _dared_!" Ridcully exclaimed.

Johanna smiled.

"The aye-aye is indeed en enimel, Arch-chencellor." she said. "It is a primate, elthough a lowly one. They could be celled a monkey, elthough they ere a primitive one, end share many cherecteristics with rodents. In their native hebitet, they ere renowned for heving no fear of people, end they will heppily welk into a kitchen end gorge on whetever tekes their fency. They are omnivores."

"You're tellin' me! And can I rely on you to flush 'em out?"

"I will bring a squed of good students from the Guild, sir. It will help their education to stelk end humanely trep these creatures! And perheps you are experiencing a population explosion? In those circumstences, enimels spread out to seek new territory. Those that hev discovered your night kitchen will seek to colonise it for themselves."

Ridcully nodded.

You move in, get the lot, cart 'em orf to your Zoo. Excellent!"

Lady King asked, curiously, "You're from Howondaland, dear? Do they celebrate Hogswatch there? Do people in Howondaland know it's Hogswatch time?"

"Oh, we certainly do!" Johanna reassured her. "My people came from Sto Kerrig hundreds of years ago. They brought Central Continent Gods end customs with them. We hev, for instance, SchwarzPieter, the herald of the Sto Kerrig Hogswetch. We sing Hogswetch carols..."

_I bet "I'm Dreaming of a White Hogswatch" is an all-time favourite, then! a_ voice muttered.

She paused and thought of her family, her parents and brothers and sisters, thousands of miles away in Howondaland. Irrelevently, a memory arose of the couple of acres of veldt where her father had been completely unable to persuade anything to grow, apart from thornbush and scrub. Vater had been planning to run an irrigation channel down there, to where nothing ever grew and no rain or river yet flowed. she wondered if he'd managed it. It would be summer at home, yet, she reflected, even under the burning Howondalandian sun, people still exchanged Hogswatch cards with snow and frost on them. A folk-memory of old Sto Kerrig? She had seen snow and ice on her first winter in Ankh-Morpork. It had come as a real shock to her system.

Johanna giggled. "Mister Dean, I remember my father singing thet one on Hogswetch Eve!" she said. "It is a fond memory!"

"That shut _you_ up, Dean!" Ridcully observed.

Johanna remembered...

_Stille nag, heilige nag,  
oor die veld, lief en sag,  
klink die lied van die engelekoor.  
eers deur herders, dan verder gehoor  
Juig, die Redder is daar!  
Juig, die Redder is daar! _

She pulled up, realising she had been humming the hymn.

"Silent Night, dear? That's nice!" said Lady King.

"Which reminds me..." Ridcully said. A University Bledlow had come to the High Table and was whispering to him.

"Okay, we'd better get these damn people over and done with. The quicker the better."

He stood up and started banging on the table and bellowing for silence. The best part of a thousand wizards stopped what they were doing and looked at him.

"Listen to me, you fellows!" he roared. "I don't like this next bit any more than you will, but show a little Hogswatch charity and put up with..."

He paused, as a motley of twenty or thirty people came in, most bedecked in jolly bright scarves and little wooly hats which in other circumstances would have been described as "silly". Some carried lanterns on long poles and all carried musical scores. Ridcully smoothly changed tack.

"Fellows, they have kindly come here tonight to entertain us and lead the singing of traditional Hogswatch carols. Sing up, you men, and dig deeply into your pockets for any small coin you have, as I'm told it's to help the more _respectable _class of Beggar! May I introduce Mrs Anagylpta Huggs and her Hogswatch Choral Group, ably supported by..." Ridcully consulted a note from up his sleeve, "The band of the Omnian Army of Salvation!"

Ponder grimaced. Johanna sighed. They had both heard of Anaglypta Huggs, a woman who had taken it upon herself to bowdlerize Hogswatch hymns and strip out all the distasteful and dirty aspects from the lyrics. Often people did not even realise the words were obscene until Anaglypta Huggs had pointed this out, often at great length. Johanna watched as Mrs Huggs, long, thin, angular and full of quivering purpose, strode forward to lead the singing. It was all oddly reminiscent of Estrella Partleigh, of the Campaign for Equal Heights. _With a side-serving of Maccalariat. _

Wizards sang along in a half-hearted sort of way. Singing picked up when one came along that everyone recognised, but Mrs Huggs indignantly screamed for them to stop,_ they were singing the __**wrong words! **_

And then Ridcully had had enough.

As a familiar tune came round that had been given bland, vanilla, words, he stood up, climbed on the table, and used his mighty quart-sized beer flagon to conduct the singing.

_At twelve o'clock on Hogswatch Eve, she tiptoed up the stairs;  
She stood beneath the mistletoe and combed her silken hair;  
The Hogfather slipped down her flue and caught her unawares -  
And this is what she said!_

_Ohhhhhhhh !_

A thousand wizards and their guests – and the University waiting staff – started to sing a well-loved favourite. Mrs Huggs' mouth opened and closed in alarm, but was lost among an increasing swell of male voices.

_Oh, Hogfather do not touch me, Oh, Hogfather do not touch me ,_  
_Oh, Hogfather do not touch me, as she stood beneath the mistletoe!_

_"Oh my name is the Hogfather" he informed her as he met her;_  
_She said "Good grief, it's seven years since I sent you a letter!"_  
_He said "I can't stand little girls, BIGGER ONES ARE BETTER!"_  
_And this is what she said!_

_Ohhhhhhhh !_

_Oh, Hogfather do not touch me, Oh, Hogfather do not touch me ,_  
_Oh, Hogfather do not touch me, as she stood beneath the mistletoe!_

Mrs Huggs was going red with rage and embarrassment now. Ridcully carried on conducting the singing, his voice still audible over the impromptu choir:

_Oh Hogfather do not touch …, Oh Hogfather do not touch …_  
_Oh Hogfather do not touch …, as she stood beneath the mistletoe!_

Ridcully called for more beer. The Omnian Army of Salvation Band was making the best of it and playing the tune.

_Oh Hogfather do not …, Oh Hogfather do not …_  
_Oh Hogfather do not …, as she stood beneath the mistletoe!_

_Oh Hogfather, **do** …, Oh, Hogfather, **do** …_  
_Oh, Hogfather, **do**…, as she stood beneath the mistletoe!_

_oh, Hogfather …!, Oh, Hogfather …!, Oh, Hogfather…!_  
_As she stood beneath the mistletoe!_

_Father …, Father …, FATHER…!_  
_As she stood beneath the mistletoe!_

Finally, full of fury and humiliation, Mrs Huggs shepherded her choir out.

_Faaa …, Faaa …, FAAA …!_  
_As she stood beneath the mistletoe!_

The wizards ' choir built up to the trimphant coda.

_He's a most immoral Hogfather, he's a most immoral Hogfather!_  
_He's a most immoral Hogfather! , as she stood beneath the mistletoe... **(3)**_

Then there was wide applause and a spontaneous standing ovation. Sensing an opportunity, several bandsmen's hats started to circulate and rapidly filled with small coin. Ridcully called for beer for the band. It was provided.

The incredibly ugly city witch, Mrs Proust, nudged Johanna and cackled.

"Last time Gytha Ogg was here near Hogswatch, she took time to tell young Annie there all about the symbolism of misteltoe and what them little white berries stood for." she said, conversationally. "Wouldn't listen. Self-opinionated little madam, in my opinion."

Johanna had heard about the Lancre witches. She smiled appreciatively.

"When you consider some of the things what has gone on in this hall, singing a mucky song comes a long way down the list of sins, to my way of thinking. You have to hand it to Ridcully, he's turned this place around from what it was!"

Johanna, appreciatively, listened to the tale of the Great Magical Duel that had taken place almost on this spot between Granny Weatherwax and a past Arch-chancellor.

"Esme struck a blow for all witches on that day." Mrs Proust said, wistfully. "They'd not have thought to invite a witch to their beanfeast otherwise. And that word _beanfeast _is right out of Hogswatch tradition..."

* * *

A lot later that night, Johanna and Ponder were snuggled close in his bed. She reflected that one phase of her life was over, and another one was just about to begin. It would have Ponder Stibbons in it. It felt good.

"Heppy Hogswetch, Ponder." she whispered, content.

"hmmwlth" Ponder mumbled.

She smiled.

* * *

And across the city, in another bed,

"Happy Hogswatch, Alice."

"happy Hogswatch, Cass!"

* * *

And a Happy Hogswatch was had by all.

* * *

And this, I think, ends it... two or three years after writing Chapter One..

**(1) **The illuminated Brothers of Midnight, in the beginnings, had taught the dark arts of moving invisibly and inobtrusively. For a long time, nothing moved more invisibly or inobtrusively than Ponder Stibbons... while the Orders had diminished in importance, garduate wizards still joined, or were invited to join. Think of Freemasonry. It's just like that.

**(2) **Bar-thing Igor at Biers, hearing lunchtime strippers were going down a bomb in other pubs, thought long and hard about how this applied to his bar. He eventually came up with publicity for _**Dead Girls! **_It didn't catch on. A zombie stripper might have shown Alice Band a thing or two...

**(3) **As performed with suitable adjustments for Roundworld, by prankster comedians the Goodies. (Tim Brooke-Taylor, Graeme Garden, and Bill Oddie) It was a hit Christmas record in the late 1970's and should be available on you-Tube.


End file.
